New Thread for 2940!!!!

[Walking]

First of all - congratulations on such good DBing over the weekend. You have come a long long way and you should be very proud of yourself. We should tick off all the positives

No R talk - excellent
Absolutely minimum backslide - fantastic
No breakdowns in front of the parents - perfect
You were "yourself" - can't do better than that
Having fun and laughing together - priceless
Calls going to voice mail and making yourself less available - you are a legend. That's great work
Getting a life, hanging out with girlfriends - excellent, excellent, excellent
Working with 2 therapists tomorrow - huge (although your dreams will be complex tomorrow night!!!! [or is it just me who has weird dreams after I've been to counselling?])

Tam, you are doing really well.

It might be helpful for you to complete a list each day of all the things you did right. You are really hard on yourself. We are hard on you too - because we've got a couple of years on you and are offering advice based on what we've learned - but you are at the beginning and congratulating yourself on things you've done well is a great start to building your own self esteem. Being genuinely proud of the progress you've made will help you to continue in the same way.

As for making love - the jury is out on that one. You percieve he's not really there and that's legitimate, but remember you are super sensitive at the moment. Remember what we learn about "assuming"? (When you assume - you make an ass out of u & me!!) You don't know what's going on in his head and it's pointless to try to figure it out.

It's not surprising that he went to his caveman "space" mode when you got home. This isn't all going to change in a hurry for him. You were expecting it and you are becoming more resiliant in accepting it, yeah?

Who knows if he slept at her place or at the office - it doesn't really matter. OW is a symptom of something much bigger going on in his life and that's his part of the journey. Don't shred yourself about it because there is nothing you can do.

My world as I've known it for the last 10 years has been turned upside down, and I'm hurt, scared, angry, sad - so many things. So it's not that I don't WANT to follow anyone's advice; it's just hard, and it hurts, and I hurt, and I'm tired of hurting and having him just going on with his jolly little OW and expecting me to keep making our business successful.

I know you hurt. It hurts for a long time. Grief is a crappy visitor.

I suspect what imLim was talking about though is our capacity to accept that it hurts and get on with the job anyway. It's about not making excuses for ourselves. Accepting that it's hard and it hurts - but we are going to do it the right way anyway? Does that make sense?

I know you all said that i need to just "act as if" and keep the business afloat, but if I do that, why in the world would he ever want to make things any different than they are now? He's literally got the best of both worlds while my heart is tearing in two...

I guess that's the part you need to really figure out. There are only really 2 alternatives.

1. "Stand" for your marriage; or
2. tell him to hit the road

If you want to "stand" and do everything you can to save it, the best way to do that is to follow the DB philosophy. The hard part is the closer you stick to the "rules" theoretically the more likely you are to succeed in restoring your marriage - that means for the time being you have to grin and bear it. You can kick and scream and beat him up - but that's not going to save your marriage.

I hate his actions in expecting me to do that with a smile on my face..

He's not expecting you to deal with it with a smile on your face - you decided to do that when you chose to take pro-active action to save your marriage, because you know you catch more bees with honey than with whatever sour stuff you have lying around.

If you choose to cut him loose -- you can take the smile right off your face, take him to the cleaners financially, and let him know right then and there that there is no such thing as having the best of both worlds. That's a strategy that there is rarely any going back from .... Of course, you will still be in pain and you will still have to grieve. It's a conundrum.

The bottom line here however is that - it is what it is - unfortunately and painfully - there is no going back. He's had an affair - he's got one foot out the door, this is all over to you now.

Sometimes we just have to be pragmatic and get on with it.

Keep at it my friend. You are getting stronger every day.

V x

PS: 2940 - If I was going to give you one piece of constructive critisim tonight - it would be STOP SNOOPING!!! When you go looking for clues about where he stayed and what he's doing it only hurts you - and you're not into masochism are you?