"Officially" piecing... now the real work begins..

[toughlover]

Well, two months is still pretty early so I think you need to expect it to be that way

I hope I (we) have a good weekend.

That's great but don't hope, don't try (tryin' is lyin'). Just DO it! At least from your end. Because I guarantee if you allow this stuff to pull you under and you have a bad weekend then you're going to here Monday posting about it and feeling worse than you do now.

Happiness is a choice before it's anything else, hon. But happiness begets happiness. Try it and see.

Recipe for a good weekend:
Detach and 180. Detach and 180. Detach and 180.

I'm thinking back to when we were about two months into it and that was the time I began to realize that if I didn't do something about myself, and quick, then I was going to seriously get in the way of the process, I was going to continue to be a problem.

Forgiveness is a commitment. You can and have decided to do that. It's also a daily choice to live up to that commitment and I believe the right way to do that is with God's help.

The future is not the past written in stone for either of you unless you want it to be. You both still haven't gotten or given the best you have to give yet. That's exciting!

Yet talking about it is hard, can be ugly and the spouses don't always want to hear it. They just want the whole thing to disappear. On the other hand we need to be open and talk about things to reestablish intimacy. How do others deal with this????

Well, that's tricky. I think the WAS needs to be willing to discuss and disclose for a certain period of time, then the LBS has to be willing to let it go. It's best if you can do this stuff and discuss the negative stuff in MC because a good counselor makes a great referee and insures that everyone is respected...plus he/she can give you some suggestions for doing things at home that will help.

The way I looked at it finally was that I shouldn't expect anything from my W because the old relationship was dead, I'd already lost her, she'd already rejected me. But, there was a new marriage in the works, she was willing to give it another shot, so I had to look at it like she was my W who'd been in a coma or had amnesia and was hanging around but it wasn't the same. We had to start from scratch. But it takes a long time for each spouse to heal individually and then be able to really give again. You're not even really ready to give again like you should be because you're carrying around all the hurt and pain still, as is natural, as we all are.

You're in the valley of the shadow right now...and it's a long, long valley, but there's a light at the other end that you may not see yet, or may just be like a pin prick. Keep going.

I know how it feels. But your H will not get you through it to a better place. Only you and God can do that. And the first step is breaking that obsession. All the info your H can give you will do is feed the obsession, and it will get hungrier and hungrier the more you feed it. Ya gotta starve the beast.

And you do it through prayer, determination, willpower, and, yes, suffering (as quietly as you can).

And by having a great weekend with your family who is home and all together during the holidays.

So don't blow it