I've read through this thread only, so please excuse any ignorance I show about your full situation.
I thought this paragraph was significant...
Quote:
Resolution? H SEEMS to want to just move on and do better. He also does say he's sorry he hurt me/us. I believe that. But I worry that if something just like this happened again, he MIGHT do the same thing since this apparently is working out the way he planned all along. Which means there is No real resolution the way I'd hoped at one time. THat bugs me more than anything else I think. That his shitty maneuvering ultimately DID work and I did just suck it up and put up with his selfish "Ends justify the Means" and as long as we are together making money, it was allll worth it.
Has this been a part of any conversation? WOULD husband do this again if something similar happened in the future? Because for me, as a man, knowing the pain I brought to my family and truly having remorse and a desire to never repeat that pain again, I would be able to say definitively that I would never allow this to happen again.
I sense resentment in you still. This feeling that this decision is being forced on you under the guise of reconciliation. It's as though this has been presented as a sign that you must fulfill to show that you are indeed commited to the marriage being made whole again. That's a lousy way to have to make a decision, and the possible source of trouble down the road.
I feel like there is incompleteness here in this reconciliation. I'm trying to take into account the bias that you must necessarily bring to sharing your story, but I still sense that you are bearing the brunt of the sacrifices involved in making this marriage complete again. What, if anything, has your husband offered to sacrifice for the two of you to be together again? Being willing to admit that he made a mistake in leaving is not the most powerful step in terms of extending himself to show his committment level.
Wouldn't it be nice if husband could commit to leaving you where you are until your oldest daughter is off to her freshman year in college? Even better, what if he would commit to joining life with you where you are through these last 4 months of her high school years, through the summer, and join you in seeing her off to college. Wow, that would be a sign of commitment that would impress me.
J, the bottom line for me, an outside and relatively new observer, is that you are in great turmoil over this. Part of it relates to the mechanism of reconciliation and how it is taking place between you and your husband. And part of it is the collateral damage that you feel from the decision you are feeling compelled to agree to. As it relates to the long term health of your new marriage, these things would worry me, and I would think that they would worry your husband as well.
I'll think more on this and post again if I can make more sense of just how I feel about what I've read. I hope I have not offended or oversimplified in some way any part of your story here.
Blessings,
Bill
"Don't tell me the sky is the limit when there are footprints on the moon."
