Thanks so much, Virginia, for your support and nice words and advice. Even though I'm not doing everything perfect, what I AM doing has been so incredibly hard for me and so against my nature; it's nice to get some support for what I have done, even though it's not perfect... Your words really helped. Thank you.

You're right; I can't imagine what H is going through right now. Even though he has a "tough" exterior, he truly has such a big heart once he lets people in. I know he has been drifting away from me for years now in the physical sense, but at the same time, for him to have gone to this extreme to where we are at now... I know (or at least pray I guess) that this wasn't easy for him. And I know he doesn't like to hurt people. I can't remember whose thread I was reading the other day, but it talked about that it might be easier for the cheating spouse to hurt the W or H rather than the OP because there is a certain comfort level with the W or H whereas the new relationship with the OP is fresh and new and exciting - yada, yada - and there isn't that time element there and comfort level, possibly making it harder to hurt the OP than the W or H? That seems to make some sense and I think may be a bit of what is going on in our situation.

Plus, as you so correctly stated, he DOES know I'm waiting. Although I haven't fallen to my knees and said through tears that I will be here until the end of time for him, he knows that I will be - he knows where my heart is. So, you're right, even though I ask him about it every once in a while, there is no real "pressure" from me that if he doesn't take care of this soon, I'm outta here.

And I actually think about that a lot as far as what you mentioned about him leaving me dangling for too long... Is it absolutely killing me and tearing my heart out to know that my own H is sleeping with another woman every night and that I'm supposed to just wait until he's done? Absolutely. It's almost surreal. Sometimes I just sit here and think "what the heck am I doing - have I completely lost my mind and all respect for myself"? And then I resign myself to the fact that I contributed grately to this situation and put him through hell and that now it's my turn, that if I want him back and to save our marriage, this is the path that I apparently must take and that I must learn as much as I can along the way, as painful as it is.

So I think almost every day about going off the deep end and freaking out or even saying in a more productive, calm way that enough is enough, that if he's truly made up his mind that he is going to come back to me and work on our marriage, he needs to end it when her once and for all and get on with it. Believe me, I struggle and fight with those thoughts daily. I haven't read yet about anyone else who is exactly in my situation as far as S seeing OP, saying they want to work on M, but haven't given up OP yet. So I don't know if my situation is unique as far as that and any "twists" that might need to be taken... I know it's important when OP is involved to use last resort technique, detaching maybe, etc., but what about when H says they ARE committed to the M? I don't know...

At any rate, I keep fighting my want to tell him that for two reasons... One is that if I give him anything that even is close to an "ultimatum" right now, there is absolutely no way in heck that I could or would want to at this point follow through on it. Every ounce of my heart and soul wants our marriage to work, and I would lose all integrity by giving him anything resembling an ultimatum and then not following through on it if he didn't come through. Is there a way to do this that ISN'T an ultimatum? I don't know. I do know that something will need to be said or done if Hawaii backfires (more on that later in this post). The other reason I hesitate to do this is because I truly WANT him to come home because he wants to, not because I pressure him to and/or give him an ultimatum, etc. Now, I realize that when I talk about R and OW, etc., that that is a form of pressure in and of itself, but I'm talking more about flat out saying to him that this is it - get yourself together or I'm outta here. Even though I know it IS a form of pressure when I bring up R or OW whatsoever, I honestly work hard to keep it non-confrontational and just a form of reassurance for me. I know it's not good to ask for reassurances, but to have someone tell you they are coming back to you when the time is right... It's just so hard to keep holding on, and if I didn't feel like I was going through this hell with a light at the end of the tunnel... It just helps me to keep fighting to at least have him not falter and keep telling me that it's going to be okay. Now, granted, he could be not telling me the truth, but I just have to pray that he would not put me through this and keep telling me we are going to work on this and then change his mind at the last hour. It's certainly possible, but I pray that he would not do that to me. If he was telling me this whole time that he didn't know yet what he was going to do and was waffling and non-committing, I could understand more and wouldn't have such high expectations. But, again, I just hope he would not be telling me this this whole time and then back out of it on me... Please, God, don't let that happen...

As you know, he has told me things as far as time frames of telling her it was over several times now that he has not followed through on, so that obviously scares me a bit. And it could very well happen that Hawaii gets here (3 weeks from today ) and that he does the same thing of not following through with it. My heart tells me that won't happen (the business part of this trip is an expensive one that I don't think he would back out on, and we are making a special side trip to another island that we got engaged on before we go to the business part of the trip). In addition, tons of people know we are planning on going and are also going to be there, etc. It will be really uncomfortable to back out of it and tell everyone we are not going. However, everything is certainly able to be cancelled, and we can certainly tell people that something came up if needed - my heart just tells me that that is not going to happen, but maybe that is to protect myself right now.

Sorry to leave such a long post... I guess I have lots or feelings and thoughts tonight that needed to get out. Thank you for listening.

At any rate, I just keep counting down the days to Hawaii and keep telling myself that it's now only 3 weeks - I CAN make it that long without hopefully screwing up too much... I want to keep DBing the best I can and giving him space - at least until then. If that backfires and we don't go, he hasn't ended it by then, etc., I'm going to have to re-think this a bit. But for now, as much as I want to freak out and tell him "enough already," I really feel like I want to fight that and keep my composure and pray that by doing that and being happy and someone he wants to be around that he will come home soon on his own.

It felt so good the other night to have him come home and know that I didn't ask him to (well, you know I've ASKED him to in the past, but you know what I mean). It wasn't like I had begged with him that day to please end it that day and to please come home that night and that I couldn't take it anymore, etc. It was just "another day," and he chose to come home. He told me he WANTED to be home. That really meant a lot to me. Am I devastated that that was Tuesday and that it's now Friday and he's still not home? Wow, I can't even describe how torn up my heart has been the past few days over this - to have a taste of reconciliation and then have it torn away again is not something I can even put into words (well, I guess not torn away, as I hope and pray and believe in my heart that it's just a matter of time).

So, bottom line, is he probably putting me "on hold" and taking his time ending it with her because he wants to avoid conflict with her and knows I'm here waiting for him and doesn't feel an ultimatum from me, etc., to end it RIGHT NOW? I'm sure that's probably the case. Are things getting better between he and I and do I feel like we're at least moving in the right direction? Definitely. So hopefully that means that what I have been doing, though not perfect, has helped and that I should keep doing it, at least for now, with my end goal in mind of him truly coming home when he wants to, on his own terms. Now, again, if Hawaii backfires, I do plan on re-thinking my strategy. I think a serious talk of sorts WILL be in order then - I'm not sure how or what, etc., but something will need to happen. At this point, I don't even want to go there mentally - I'll deal with it then if I need to and for now keep focusing on the positive and counting down 3 weeks.

Well, I better close soon before I put you all to sleep...

Two more quick things to tell you:

1.) This morning I dropped off something for him and brought him breakfast as a surprise. He said "thank you, sweetie," which was nice. I hang on every nice thing he calls me... Then, he leaned over to kiss me on the cheek and I THINK said "I love you"! I couldn't believe my ears and am still not 100% positive that that is what he said (as I certainly wasnt' expecting THAT to come out of his mouth). I started to say something else and then realized what I THOUGHT he said and then froze for a moment. I thought very quickly to myself "do I ASK him to repeat what he said" (potentially very uncomfortable situation)? Instead, I prayed I heard him right and looked at him and said "I love you, too." And then I finished what I started to say. Again, I don't know for sure if that's what he said but think so... He may have said it out of "habit," but it's been so long since he has said that (probably November - except for the note he left the other day saying that "I'm sure you know I love you" - still not sure, BTW, what to make of that), so I doubt habit played a part, but it's possible. At this point, I prefer to keep positive and hope he said it because it's in his heart.

2.) This morning before I got out of bed I purposely created a "scene" in my head of the night he DOES finally come home for good. I pictured where we both would be standing and what I would say and he would say and what would happen next, etc. In real-time, it would probably be about a 15 minute exchange. Once I had it down in my head in a way that I felt really good about, I replayed it in my head several times before getting up. I thought aobut what I've read about seeing yourself there before you're there in order to get there and decided I wanted to create a vision in my mind of our reconciliation and keep replaying it in my mind each morning and each night and even during the day if I think about it (maybe at times when I'm having a hard day) and focus on making what I see in my mind a reality. I don't know if it will work but figure it certainly can't hurt.

At your suggestion, I started reading the thread you advised me about - I read for about an hour last night and am still on the first thread and am looking forward to continuing reading her situation. Thank you for advising me about it. It really helps to read about other people who have gone through similar situations. I may write on her thread once I get caught up and ask her for some advice for where I am at now...

I definitely agree with her about the not snooping bit... It has really helped me the past week or however long it's been now that I've let most of that go - still haven't checked his personal credit card and have avoided asking him any questions about his whereabouts when the answer could possibly be something I might not want to hear. I haven't driven by her house at all to see if he's there, and I've even avoided driving by her house during the day when I know he's not there (she lives in the path of where I drive a lot every day - nice...). I purposely go out of my way to take a different route. It has really helped. There are certain things I do want to potentially ask him about once we start working on things again (Michele says to ask if you must but be prepared that you might not like what you hear). The questions I feel like I may want to ask aren't necessarily "snooping" questions of "where were you at on this night or when I was doing this or going here," etc., but more around his feelings and the course of how this whole thing is going and why and that sort of thing. I may end up not wanting to ask those questions at all and just preferring to let it go - I'll see how I feel about it when the time comes. But for now, the "no snooping" rule has really helped me a lot. Even tonight, we had a business meeting, and we both were driving to leave, and I happened to be two cars behind him and saw him get onto the freeway the opposite way from home, and my heart tore out of my chest. I purposely drove out of the parking lot fast in order to hopefully avoid seeing this happen but accidentally took a wrong turn and ended up behind him... I know that probably seems silly to get upset about things as small as that, but even that just killed me. Next time, I'll zoom out faster even! Better yet, let's just pray there ISN'T a next time!

One more quick thing before I go... Virginia, you talked about continuing to do things for myself. I am continuing to do that - still am going to the gym, still am working on "loosening up" when we're out together, still am working on being happy and a fun person to be around and not appearing down and needy and desperate (like I said, even though I know it's potentially anti-DBing to say ANYTHING about the R and/or OW, I have NOT broken down in tears and/or had any sort of a freak show session in weeks now) and, probably one of the biggest changes for me is that I have been scheduling a lot of outings for me and for us. I know it's not the best to schedule things for he and I together, but at least I have the business to use as an excuse, and he's open to it, and it makes me feel good just to be with him and work on my "new me" around him, so hopefully it's not too harmful other that I know it's not making him miss me... But I've also been making time just for ME to go out with friends and business associates, and I wasn't doing that before. My reasons are two-fold - one, to work on being more social, and two, to make the time pass by faster. I've enjoyed going out more and feel like I'm becoming a better person through all of these steps I'm taking. Could I be doing MORE GALing? Sure. And I've made huge steps from where I was at even a few weeks ago. I know it's important to keep this up, even when he does come home for good. I pray that it will be even easier to GAL when he gets home because I won't have such a heavy heart to deal with... And I also look forward to GALing WITH him - there are so many things I've thought about that we used to do and don't do anymore. I really am looking forward to doing those things again and hope it will help to rekindle our love...

Okay, I've REALLY got to go now! Again, thanks for listening and letting me vent. Apparently I really needed to do that today...

Tomorrow is another opportunity to keep doing what is working, Virginia. Help give me strength!