Down But Not Out - Part V

[DnJ]

Good Morning DV

Excellent answer to why you forgive H. The goes hand in hand with acceptance and the negativity that will remain if you don’t - wise insights.

So, why can’t you see that for yourself? Forgiveness and acceptance. You are still working towards accepting yourself and your actions. For a lot of times acceptance sounds like giving up, or blaming, when directed at ourselves. Acceptance is just emotional understanding. Blame, regret, letting go of fear, etc... are other factors to look into which help lead to acceptance.

For what it’s worth, to me it looks like you are adjusting your beliefs. Challenging them, strengthening the ones you want, and altering and bettering the less desirable ones. This takes time. Feeling are fleeting, thoughts come and go pretty quick, however beliefs are slow to change. Keep your heading and get your soul walking the direction you want to go. Become the DV you want to be.

You have the gift of time, keep using it well.

Your “cars” will line up, it’s just going to take time.

DnJ

[TBSakaJ9]

D - I am almost 2 years in and I have still not forgiven my XW for what she did to our family. I have accepted it but I have not forgiven her. If she wanted to recon with me tomorrow the one thing that I would have a tough time swallowing is not what she did (how she felt) but how she went about doing it. The lack of communication, the lack of effort, the lack of expressing herself to me. She may have tried to make it work "her" way but she never clued me in on "her" efforts to make it work. So "her" working on it was one sided without me, the other half in the R, being included in the process. Thus "we" never worked on our R. That is something that would make it very difficult for me to trust her again.

IMO you don't have to forgive to move on but at some point you do have to accept.

[AnotherStander]

My thoughts re: your GF... if not trusting her 100% stops you from becoming lazy and complacent, then maybe that is a good thing. And the lack of 100% trust does not mean she isn't 100% trustworthy... I think it is just the natural consequence of having been blindsided like most of us were.

Yes, exactly. Once bitten twice shy The downside is she feels like I'm not "all-in", and while I've explained the above to her I'm not sure it really resonates with her. She's never been married, and never been in a relationship longer than ours so she doesn't really understand where I'm coming from.

I envy where you are at in life AS. I so want to get there and not have to go through this other stuff. But life just doesn't work that way, does it.

Unfortunately you've got to put raw materials in a really hot fire for a length of time to refine them into steel, there's just no shortcut. But you will be a Damascus Steel sword before you know it

I spent some time looking through old threads this weekend and found three people who got divorced and then later reconciled with their H's who suddenly "woke up" and realized what they wanted, they had had all along. I'm not naïve enough to think that will happen with my H but it was comforting to read that it did happen for some people.

Yeah it definitely happens. Often by the time they "wake up" the LBS is well and truly done with them and those people tend not to come back to share the story. So many more WAS's eventually "wake up" than we realize I think. Unfortunately they do it on their timeline, not ours. And their timeline is stupidly long.

[DejaVu6]

Thanks Everyone.

Thanks everyone for your input.

So, why can’t you see that for yourself? Forgiveness and acceptance. You are still working towards accepting yourself and your actions. For a lot of times acceptance sounds like giving up, or blaming, when directed at ourselves. Acceptance is just emotional understanding. Blame, regret, letting go of fear, etc... are other factors to look into which help lead to acceptance.

Yes... it is a work in progress. I am getting there... promise.

I am almost 2 years in and I have still not forgiven my XW for what she did to our family. I have accepted it but I have not forgiven her. If she wanted to recon with me tomorrow the one thing that I would have a tough time swallowing is not what she did (how she felt) but how she went about doing it. The lack of communication, the lack of effort, the lack of expressing herself to me. She may have tried to make it work "her" way but she never clued me in on "her" efforts to make it work. So "her" working on it was one sided without me, the other half in the R, being included in the process. Thus "we" never worked on our R. That is something that would make it very difficult for me to trust her again.

IMO you don't have to forgive to move on but at some point you do have to accept.

For me to move on, I really think I need both. When I think back on my MR, I want to be able to smile.. Will I ever agree with the things that he did? No I won't. For sure, he sealed our fate and it s#cks and it is unfair and it could have been very, very different if only he had trusted us enough to let me know what was going on. But he didn't and that is more about him than it is about me. But I did have a part in it so it isn't all on him. Strangely... I think I could trust him again. But only if he did the work and truly wanted to build a new relationship. "Forgiveness means giving up hope for a better past." I read that somewhere... maybe on here? Anyway...it spoke to me. We can't go back as much as some of us would dearly love to.

Unfortunately you've got to put raw materials in a really hot fire for a length of time to refine them into steel, there's just no shortcut. But you will be a Damascus Steel sword before you know it grin

And man is that fire ever hot!! Hmmm...my H has a thing for swords...lol.

Yeah it definitely happens. Often by the time they "wake up" the LBS is well and truly done with them and those people tend not to come back to share the story. So many more WAS's eventually "wake up" than we realize I think. Unfortunately they do it on their timeline, not ours. And their timeline is stupidly long.

Yes...I'd like to think this could happen in my sitch but I highly doubt it. I think my H is too stubborn and has too much pride. I also think that the second he sleeps with someone and feels those butterflies again, he will be all in and won't look back. The best predictor of future behaviour is past behaviour and my H has a history of this. Also...this is really what he wants. He wants to have a responsibility-free relationship and to be a part-time parent. He would deny that last part to the nth degree but deep down, he knows it is true. He wasn't only running away from me for all those years.


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