Hi Jenny, me again. I need some advice. (When don't I?) I told you h had flowers and a lovely anniversary card for me, two days after we celebrated our anniversary and we had another infamous talk, in which he said again that we don't communicate. I came here the next day and posted a very depressed message. The last week has been quite calm, and he left Saturday on this business trip overseas with OW, for two weeks. All day Saturday he hung around, hugging me and kissing me every time he left the house to do an errand. When I drove him to the airport he told me he would miss me and that he loved me. That's a first in several months. I know I should be jumping up and down, but I'm not. Michele says look at the actions and not at the motives, but I suspect he's worried I might do something while he's away, and wants to reassure me. Problem is we've been here about two or three times already, and every time he reels me back in, then goes down again. He knows I have a real problem with this woman (he writes the proposals, and works for a variety of organizations, and yet never travels with any other person.) and yet he continues the relationship. I have said nothing further about this trip, and have avoided all talk about it. If he is interested in working on this marriage, where do we go from here? Every time in the past that we have started to discuss my issues of broken trust, betrayal and anger (it's not just her, it's others that he's been chasing -- eg I've caught him on chat lines, found charge receipts for personals ads, seen many unusual numbers on his phone line, and so on), he backs off the whole thing and gets angry and withdraws again. Obviously, I don't want to make that mistake again, but what does one do with the very real issue of trust. I just don't trust him. As well, we seem to be caught in a classic distancer-pursuer dance and he seems only interested when I'm on the verge of splitting. It's usually when he starts to warm up to me again that I feel the anger really rising, and figure it's for one of two reasons. Either I feel comfortable enough bringing up my own issues (remember he's had many opportunities to complain about my shortcomings), or else I'm subconsciously (or consciously) erecting barriers to prevent myself from getting hurt, in effect sabotaging any real possibilities of reconciliation and intimacy. How did you handle this with your h? Did you just ignore any issues you had re the ones I mentioned? Should I suggest the KLA tapes to work on together, the way Chelsea and her h are doing? I've been following Carey's progress, and see so many similarities between us -- my h in the past has wanted to keep our relationship and yet continue with his parallel life of certain friends. He has a phone line and email address, and a password on that and his computer, none of which I have access to, yet he has access to my email and my phone messages. We don't even have a joint checking account, so it's a history that's long-standing. It seems the will to reconcile is starting to return with him, at least as of yesterday, but who knows what he will feel like after two weeks with his "soulmate" (his words). Incidentally, after our anniversary I think I had reached that point where I really was ready to pull the plug and didn't feel badly about it. He seems to anticipate this, and acts on it. Did you experience this with your h, and how did you deal with it? Thanks Jenny, Alex
