I'm Finally Ready to "Drop the Rope"

[micoms]

FA,

I know it will be hard, every thing at first will remind you of the bad stuff. But over time it will fade. I know it will be a lot of hard work, but there will be good times ahead to share with each other. How is your D dealing with the two of you "working on it"? She must be ecstatic!! The hard work of reconciling and piecing in my mind will be easier that dealing with a D and all that goes with it.

W is coming to the house tomorrow to clean, I'm on call, hope I don't get any. I saw her on Sunday, her eye was still swollen and red but was open so she could see out of it. She says it looks a lot better now and isn't turning black and blue. She still is pushing for the D. She is living with D24, I think she needs to get her own place and experience the loneliness of being by herself in an apartment. S26 and D20 have moved out and it's just me and the dog. Speaking of which how are you doing with yours?

Mike

[fooled again]

Mike,

The hardest thing about what is happening now is me - my dark thoughts, my fears, my worries creeping back into my mind. So many things still appear suspicious to me, and I am trying to find a comfortable place between a rock and a hard place. If I remain detached, my H says he feels that I don't care, don't make him feel that I love him, don't give him attention, he becomes obsessed w/ what I'm doing, and afraid. If I lessen my detachment and start to open up, I start to get those awful suspicions about what he is doing, I become obsessed w/ what he is doing and I feel myself starting to get messed up again. It's the uncertainty that is scrambling things up for me.

I don't know, maybe having the certainty that it was really over might be easier, then I could figure out what is the right thing to do for ME, b/c I would simply have to worry about only me (and D). I said easier, not better. It is not what I want or wish for, nor would it EVER be. I just think it might be easier. I think that's why so many people do give up and go their separate ways. But I'm sure if our places were reversed and I was dealing with the D and you were piecing, I would think otherwise.

D is actually having a really hard time w/ our sitch. She wants things to be back to the way they were so badly, and when we are all together, she is ecstatic. But when it is time for H to leave, she completely melts down. It's heartbreaking. I talked to her about it and asked what she was feeling. She told me that when we have a really good family day like that, she doesn't want it to end, and she is afraid that it won't ever happen again. It's so hard to know what is the right thing to tell her about what H and I are doing. She's very, very smart, and I have talked to her about wanting things a certain way and having to wait, but for someone so little, waiting is agony. So we do the best we can. But I can tell you Mike, this does not get easier, at least not right away.

Butterflymom, I wonder if you have fluttered by to check up on me lately. If you are reading this, could you tell me if you had any strategies for working through the initial stages of piecing, where you were both so raw and fragile and suspicious. I'm still trying to remain detached, but the closer I get to him, the harder it is to maintain, like an emotional vortex.

I had found out something on the w/e that upset me but didn't want to talk about it w/ him so I tried to tell him I was tired and he should go get some sleep too. He showed up seconds later at the door wanting to know why I didn't want to see him, that he'd been thinking about holding me all week. I suggested that maybe we weren't ready to try to reconcile right now, that I felt as though he still needed to figure out what he wanted. He left then came back and then it turned into an R talk of epic proportions. We talked about many, many things, recent and not so recent and he stayed the night and just held me. We spent the next day together w/ D and did stuff around the house, had dinner and he stayed over again.

Part of me is very, very happy that we are talking about things, but part of me is feeling very vulnerable as my layers of protection are peeled away so that I can reconnect w/ him. Trust is the biggest issue w/ us, and he knows that I still don't trust him. By the same token, he doesn't trust me, since he is afraid that I will simply toss him away for what he has done, maybe draw him back so I can get back at him.

I guess putting this all down in words has helped me tonight, even though I have no solutions right now. I also see that I need to read the parts of DB that have to do with the work that has to be done to rebuild our M, the goal setting, the watching what is working, all that stuff.

Thanks to you again for reading.
FA

[butterflymom]

FA - I'm around. Just bumping for now. Can't really post from work will try to get on tonight and answer your questions.

BFM

[butterflymom]

ok, so getting on a few nights ago didn't work out so great. Sorry.

Strategies for dealing with the beginnings of piecing. I guess first is to have no expectations of anything. Good grief that gets hard though when they are saying and doing the things the we have longed for them to say and do.

I think where you are at right now is probably the hardest part. It was for me anyway. THat beginning when you don't know if they are really committed to the marriage, but you want them to be so badly that you can taste it. You don't know if they are really ready to give up the OW or not because in reality they are still with them and not with you.(at least that was the case with me).

It's tough when you find out things that upset you. You still feel like your walking on eggshells and you don't want to upset that balance, but yet things are moving along and you want to be able to tell him what upset you.

My suggestions, not very novel or inventive. Pray. then pray some more. then when you think you know what to do, pray again. It seemed to me to be the best thing. There is not a lot of guidance or books or people it seems that have been at this stage. And those that have been at this stage tend to leave the board and go be happy married people so it's hard to figure out what you should do. You don't get a multitude of different opinions on how to go so it's hard.

I say go with your "gut". For me my gut is what God was telling me through my prayer. Good luck. This is the hardest part. IF you can get through it it does get a little easier. Not without problems or conflict, but easier for you as you become more comfortable with him and with him meaning what he says and knowing he's not going anywhere.

I'll keep an eye on this.

BFM

[fooled again]

BFM,
Thanks for stopping in.

I think where you are at right now is probably the hardest part. It was for me anyway. That beginning when you don't know if they are really committed to the marriage, but you want them to be so badly that you can taste it. You don't know if they are really ready to give up the OW or not because in reality they are still with them and not with you.(at least that was the case with me).

I would say you are right about this being the hardest part. I find myself in a perpetual argument about whether I can believe what he is saying to me. I continue to live my life and try not to have any expectations, but now that he is saying pretty much EVERYTHING I want and need to hear, some of those expectations have been resurrected. This argument I have with myself is about whether or not any of it is true, or some of it. H lied to me so convincingly for so long, and I let myself believe his lies. I never KNEW he was with OW, I only found out over and over again that he had lied about it being over, I mean like 3 or 4 times. Now I find myself in the same situation of second guessing what he says to me, like I'm caught in a film loop replaying the same scene over and over again. The difference now, a year later, is that I am maintaining my detachment fairly well, I am continuing to GAL, I am not obsessing over him and I now know that I could be happy without him.

It's tough when you find out things that upset you. You still feel like your walking on eggshells and you don't want to upset that balance, but yet things are moving along and you want to be able to tell him what upset you.

Yes it's tough when I find out things that upset me, but I also still find myself looking for things. It's as though I can't get used to the idea of him NOT lying to me and I'm looking to catch him. I'm also not walking on eggshells, in fact I'm actually trying to upset the balance - I'm trying to give him an out so that he can go if he wants, go figure himself out, go play the field, try dating, whatever, and then see if I'm what he wants. He keeps saying no, that he wants me. I tell him I'll be okay without him and not to feel obligated anymore and he tells me that he knows I'll be okay but he doesn't want to think about that.

Unfortunately praying is not really my thing. Don't get me wrong, I do have faith in a higher power, but not necessarily one that has a hand in the minutia of my little life. I guess what you refer to as "praying" I could interpret as looking inside myself for answers, but somehow I find it difficult to believe that the answers are within me.

I suppose I am back to the realization that "time will tell", that I have to let go of trying to control or predict or analyze the situation. But I have been at this so long that I just want to know which direction I should take in my life. I did tell him, finally, that I was not going to live my life this way much longer and that I was not going to play his games anymore. Seriously, I know it is not DBing, but it does represent a 180 for me. I also realize that at this point in time, if I found out he was still with OW, I would be done and that would be the end of it. I am ready, willing and able to move out of Limbo Land.

FA