Book Club 2

[Harmony]

Michele,

H states that he is committed to rebuilding the marriage, and he is generally affectionate and loving and makes occasional gestures such as calling me from work, but when it comes to the biggies like counseling and talking about the A, he digs in his heels, and his latest statement was, "I'm going to do it my way, and I'm not going to follow anybody's script, including yours."

It is especially disappointing to me because before I agreed to take him back, I laid out for him everything I had learned about recovery and the extraordinary efforts that would be necessary to rebuild after such a blow. He agreed to do "anything", read books, go to counseling, etc., so I allowed him to move back in based on that. "Anything" soon was revised to "anything but that" whenever I tried to pursue any plan for recovery.

For the time being, I have decided to set a six-month limit on myself that he doesn't know about. I have challenged myself to act as if everything is okay (do it his way), be what he wants me to be, and see if he decides to get serious about the work that needs to be done. This way I have a light at the end of the tunnel and know I don't have to suffer in silence forever.

I have been writing down all my hurts, triggers, questions, outrage, everything that comes to mind about the A, in a notebook. This serves two purposes: 1) Anchors it so I can get it out of my head, and 2) Keeps a record of my journey and a ready-made place to start when and if H ever decides to help me recover from his A.

If he does not take a more active role in the rebuilding of the marriage by the end of the six-month period, then I will be more than ready to set and enforce the necessary limits. I will be getting repeat STD testing at the 3-month mark, and should this elicit any positive findings, THAT will advance the schedule immediately.

D-day, when he moved back in, was 1 month ago, and except for the few times I tried to discuss the A, our general interaction has been mostly like a honeymoon couple, so everything else I'm doing is working.

Because of that, I had a hard time trying to figure out what need the OP may be meeting as you suggest in that section of the chapter, and then it hit me that maybe it is admiration! He probably feels a lot of shame around me and knows he fell off his white horse. That is going to be a hard one for me to fulfill under the circumstances. I have no problem complimenting him on his looks, athletic ability, sexual skills, but when it comes to character qualities, all I can think of is that he works hard to provide for the family. At least it's a start.

Thanks for the expansion on what I read in DR, and now I'm going to go back and read the rest of the book!

Harmony