HI Bill and Cindy...thanks for your input. Sadly, as this goes on, I see a lot of similarities to Annie, Bill. Teenager-like behavior. Perhaps, in one way, the longer this drags on, the more I am able to see it both ways. Remember what frank_d faced? He said that after his W 'came back', he wasn't sure that whether he should stay with her, or, if she was someone he could live with.
That's true. One of the reasons was that during all the 'DB' time I was focused on fixing. fixing, fixing.
Then I realized I had fixed it all. I was the 'winner' the 'hero'.
And I was still lost.
I did do a good job fixing and I also gave up a part of ME to do it. I had never stopped 'giving', which was my real problem before the affair - I was tired of always giving, and carrying all the problems. Then spending 6 months REALLY giving my all and getting zero in return.
So, yeah, I really didn't know if I wanted this woman who was really good at 'needing' and not so good at being straight with me, and wondering if all I had to do was ignore her for a few months - then she'd have another affair. In other words "If I stopped 'giving' all the time, will she bail?"
AM I the source of all the power in this relationship? If so, is that fair?
Yeah, I read the stuff from 'makingherhappy.com' and it's great stuff, but I was not understanding one of the main points. It's taken me a while to grasp but it's something like this:
"While men can (and do) have a really strong leadership role in a relationship, and women feel 'safe' and 'loved' when we are being as alpha male as possible, that doesn't mean that they can't fill the gaps when we don't particularly feel very alpha.
I was thinking 'oh sure, if I slip up and get weak at all she will bail'. In reality, if that were TRUE, then I wouldn't want to be with someone like that.
Then I thought 'well, how will I know?'
The only way to 'know' is to have a difficult time, and be totally different in how you handle it. Ask for help, and continue to remember that she still has those needs she had, that she went outside the relationship for and that she's getting with me since we got back together.
Sure, she'll tolerate small lapses in that 'attention' from you but the bottom line, as my W said to me, is that she just doesn't want to feel alone. I can withdraw, check out or whatever for short periods but I have to stay connected enough to make her feel loved.
Isn't that what we all do wrong? we 'check out' and forget about them? So they bail?
The other thing is that my W totally understands that she was running away from her life when she found OM. That no matter what, she was running from the person she really loved, me, but had decided that it would never be better than it was and looked elsewhere.
I proved to her that no matter what, I would never lose faith in her as a woman and as a mom and as a person. That, is what made the difference. I was willing to let her go BUT not compromise my own self image and self esteem. It was the faith and the willingness to let go that made the difference.
So later, yeah, I did have to evaluate MY needs and MY life to figure out what the hay had happened and whether or not I had really won what I though I wanted.
We were all thrust into this situation we're all in. And right now we are (or were) in 'fix it' mode. In the end though we still have to look at what we 'fixed' and determine if it's really what we want after all.
In my case, I believe it is what it should be. But it took time to find that out. and tests.
