Kent said I should start my own thread, so here goes.
I'm a lot excited and a little scared to be posting here. This section of the board is one I've always aspired to be part of, and it's been a tough road getting here. After lots of up and down, back and forth, talk of and to lawyers and filing, OM that wouldn't go away, lots of snooping on my part... the whole nine yards, we've reached a point where she's willing to "work on our marriage". The details of how we got to this point are somewhere on Newcomers, and are largely unimportant except for a couple of points: First, HOW we got to the point of trying to reconcile was through a horrendous OR talk that resulted in me spilling a lot of stuff that I've not said in the interest of "good DBing"... By that, I mean I've been doing the detachment thing, the no OR talk thing, the give her space thing. She told me that she read it as lack of interest and "permission" for her to carry on her affair, and move on with her new single lifestyle. She said she had no idea I felt as strongly for the marriage as I did (but she was an alien, and lies). The 180 in our situation, it seems is MORE OR!!! Tho, in this new phase, it does seem less is more. Who knows? Second, after that fight, she said she'd give us 3 months to work on the marriage, she'd stop seeing OM, and she agree to counciling. Third point, I had once said one of my main conditions for even beginning to consider granting her a divorce was that she make the effort to work on our marriage and only if it then proved unworkable would I condider ending it. I'm not convinced that this "attempt" to work on our marriage is genuine, and not a ploy with an agenda to "prove to me" that this is over. I'm now convinced that the OM isn't just "biding his time" for three months, and that she'll not pull the plug after 3 months. I laid it out in http://66.111.66.234/cgi-bin/ultimatebb.cgi?ubb=get_topic&f=24&t=004355 This new phase started on Oct 4, so we are about 32 days into the 3 months...
Anyway, we've been to 3 C session. Although I've asked a couple of times now, both in and out of C sessions, I still don't know W's definition of "working on our marriage". I've expressed that I feel we need to make measurable goals to evaluate that, and I expressed concern about the feeling that "3 months" was a deadline, not a working period. So far, she's agreed that both those are reasonable concerns... we are working on some goals in C, and she's agreed that 3 months is a flexible time frame, not a drop dead date.
On the positives, she's now told me that she's stopped seeing OM, and she's only had phone contact with him a couple of times. She said he's under "strict orders" not to call or email her. That term, "strict orders" bugs me, because is sounds like agreement, and conspiratorial, but my mind is a mess right now. We are getting along generally well. She never moved out of house, but did move out of Bedroom in late August. The other day, she slept in our bed while we had a houseguest (she's been in the guestroom). Tonight, we both watched the World Series in "her place". Then good-night, and I'm typing this before I go to bed. Things seem to be getting better, closer, at least for the past couple of days.
I guess I don't have much more to say right now, I just wanted to open this door. I read all of JJ's, ALTL, Rudi, Kent, and LeeP's threads here, and they've given me so much a sense of peace that was missing before. I (probably like most of you) thought that once I got her to work, and then got her to a marriage C that it would be all down-hill from there. I had no idea that this phase can be even more stressful than when she was actively, openly with the OM and talking divorce and lawyers in every other conversation. Reading you stuff has been so grounding.
I, like Kent, took a long time off, and pretty much avoided the boards for a while. But in the past week or so, I've gotten so much from them, especially here. I like the pace of this area. I like the more "journaling" format it seems to have taken on. I think I'll stick around. Thanks so much for the support you've already given me.
