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PM99,

Quickly I just want to chime in that it sounds like he feels ganged up on in MC. Everyone knows that it was wrong and an affair and it sounds like you are looking for vindication. Do you want to be right or married?

I get the feeling that you and May are at the "reconciliation at all costs" stage and it must be done quickly to alleviate my fears.

It doesn't work that way. The WW has to see the LBS as a person of value that they are willing to work for to remain in their lives.

I'm sorry you are going through this right now.

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LH, I think the MC is very impartial and likes to challenge a way of thinking rather than state that "you did this". So in terms of him stating H had an affair, he actually said "what makes an affair of any kind an affair is the secrecy and the lies" - although he has called H's relationship an A from day 1 as that is how he sees it - which it was, right? Even H said himself yesterday he doesn't see it as an affair as it wasn't sexual.

I'm not looking for vindication at all. I have spent 18 months second-guessing myself, doubting my intuition, with H seemingly blinkered about how this other relationship impacted him, me and the marriage, and how it continues to impact. Do I have anger to process? Yes, I do, but I am trying to use MC as a structured environment in which to process it. Do I feel that my feelings are constantly quashed? Yes, I do, and again MC is a way of laying out my feelings and for MC to present them to H from a neutral standpoint.

I don't believe we are ganging up on H at all - H may disagree of course! I just think H is being made to face head-on some uncormfortable truths. How he chooses to process them is now down to him. I have left the last two MC sessions feeling like a weight has been lifted, that I do have a voice, and my feelings can be heard. H says he feels relief that this is all coming out. That he does want to talk about these things because he hates carrying round the burden and the guilt.

Who knows how this will pan out - but right now I just feel relief that someone is able to validate and ratify my feelings.


M:49 H:49
T:20 M:18
D:16 D:14

EA: Feb 2019-May 2020
Separated: Mar-early Aug 2020
H asked to reconcile: Jun 2020
EA relapse: Oct/Nov 2020
Recon #2: since Nov 2020
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Hi Pommy,

I updated on my own thread the last couple of days on where I am in all of this and I don't think we are ready for MC at this point. I want to just focus on myself for a bit, figuring out how to process my own emotions and leave H be to his.

That being said, for you guys-- I sense that your H is having a tough time facing his own actions-- not even being able to name what he did as an A is pretty major denial for starters. It is good that he feels relief in talking about these things and not carrying them around inside. Have you guys talked at all about what other truths there might still be left to be discovered?

Also, thinking that maybe for the time being letting him process all this on his own a bit and not pushing him faster than he is willing to be pushed is a good idea. Assuming the MC is a professional and can gauge the right amount of pressure that H can take. Even though this experience is validating for you, I still don't think you want your H to feel as though he is being ganged up on. I could be wrong but from his behavior and responses in the past, it doesn't seem he responds well to that, necessarily. If your H is saying he feels you're going over old ground and that isn't helpful for him (even though it is for you), what would H find helpful from a session and maybe you could let him start with that next time?

I've been thinking recently about the conversations I had in the fall and early spring with my DB coach, and re-read my notes from them. She said multiple times that the number one predictor of couples that recover from an A and go on to M2.0 is friendship, backed by Gottman's work. She talked about romance being the fruit of the tree of the R, and right now it looks dead from the outside. You need to water the roots and have the leaves come out before it is ready to fruit again. The roots, trunk, branches are your friendship and you can't pick the fruit before it is ready-- patience being my biggest challenge. Anyway, I say that in response to this:

Originally Posted by Pommy99
Aside from all that, H and I have done what we do best - get on, be affectionate, cuddle a lot, go cycling together - perfect companions, all without the deep level of emotional intimacy that we are both looking for.

I know people here are super worried about being friend-zoned and of course Esther Perel talks about a lot of that and the general disconnect between long-term relationships and desire in Mating in Captivity. But that definitely wasn't the view of the DB coach and MWD, Gottman, and Glass all really focus on spending time together and working on your friendship as a first step in affair recovery (once you've dealt with all the fallout of the discovery), that the feelings will come back in time. So IDK. I maybe wouldn't worry about it so much. It isn't really within your control anyway. If you're enjoying yourself on the bike rides and OK with him being there and not moving forward with S or D, then I would push you to just be okay with where you are right now. You have plenty of time.

Honestly-- being friends with your H is not the worst thing in the world. And once he gets some time and space and distance from the OW, can start to process his own emotions and behaviors and what they mean, there is time for your connection together to deepen and resurface. But it will probably be slower if you are poking at it all the time. (Telling myself this too.)

My rings are still off too. IDK when I'll put them back on. I'm not going to worry about it for now. Maybe it does come across as pressure for your H to think you're waiting for some big sign from him to put them back on and he doesn't know what to do about that. From a 180 standpoint... I wonder what would happen if you did just put them back on and not say anything. It could be a signal to him that you are willing to open the door to him as he stands on the doorstep and work on the M. They are just rings after all and only have the significance you place on them. I'm not suggesting you do that if it doesn't feel right to you, but maybe it would help to just lighten things up a bit if you could say, OK, I'm here too, I'm willing to work on our M even though I'm not feeling everything I want to feel right now. It is more like thinking about love as an action rather than a feeling. Just a thought for you to take or leave.

Hang in there, Pommy.

xx M


Me (46) H (42)
M:14 T:18, D9 & D11
4/19 - 12/19: series of escalating BDs
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Hi Pommy,

Wow, I read your latest updates. You see the long road, and are taking small steps along it.

From the peanut gallery never having dealt with an affair, I love that you required him to cut off contact to his EAP and took away some of his power with "I could walk.", and what May says about giving him having to have the time he needs to process each step of his changes (e.g. recognizing it was an affair). Anyway, kind thoughts and prayers your way! It's nice to see your situation leaning in a positive direction.

Originally Posted by Pommy
I just feel relief that someone is able to validate and ratify my feelings.

Have you thought about scheduling some IC sessions for that purpose?

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Originally Posted by may22
That being said, for you guys-- I sense that your H is having a tough time facing his own actions-- not even being able to name what he did as an A is pretty major denial for starters. It is good that he feels relief in talking about these things and not carrying them around inside. Have you guys talked at all about what other truths there might still be left to be discovered?
MC asked if I have a list of Qs - I do. He suggested I re-review my Qs and see which ones I feel I need an answer to. He also suggested that H and I do this away from the house, maybe go for a walk and talk. Since the session, I have read my list but right now I don't know if this is the right time. In some ways I feel we are focusing to much energy on that and OW. This weekend, we need to get back to enjoying life and not focusing on the negative stuff. Perhaps I just have to accept the Qs are petty in the grand scheme of things - there were a huge amount of lies over 12 months, so knowing who he went off to phone on holiday 18 months ago probably isn't that important (although I've been carrying this for 18 months and wondering why I cant let it go).

Originally Posted by may22
If your H is saying he feels you're going over old ground and that isn't helpful for him (even though it is for you), what would H find helpful from a session and maybe you could let him start with that next time?
This is a good point. I will suggest this to him. I did push him a little today around lack of intimacy and he reassured me that he feels we've been spending better quality time together and feeling closer. He did also say I'm trying to push him too fast. We did agree, however, that the events of the last 3 weeks have caused us to derail a bit and we haven't been doing our MC "homework" and we need to start that again. I sat down and thought about what he HAS done over the last 2 weeks in the name of the M and I felt a little guilty for not allowing him some time to process everything. Like you, I struggle for patience - I think that is because my timeline is 20 months in and counting...his is a lot shorter. He told me more about how the NC conversation went with OW - she got really angry with him and made him feel guilty, saying that she would never have done that to him ,would never block him, would have always been there for him etc etc. That's what's been playing on his mind but MC session helped him release some of that - H said he realized she wasn't his responsibility anymore. (I bit my tongue as I thought "and when WAS this married woman your responsibility?" !!!)

Originally Posted by may22
I've been thinking recently about the conversations I had in the fall and early spring with my DB coach, and re-read my notes from them. She said multiple times that the number one predictor of couples that recover from an A and go on to M2.0 is friendship, backed by Gottman's work. She talked about romance being the fruit of the tree of the R, and right now it looks dead from the outside. You need to water the roots and have the leaves come out before it is ready to fruit again. The roots, trunk, branches are your friendship and you can't pick the fruit before it is ready
- I very much agree with this, but I guess I start to panic that the tree isn't growing (after all I am trying to watch it grow every single day!!) and then I do something dumb like over-water it!

Originally Posted by may
Maybe it does come across as pressure for your H to think you're waiting for some big sign from him to put them back on and he doesn't know what to do about that. From a 180 standpoint... I wonder what would happen if you did just put them back on and not say anything. It could be a signal to him that you are willing to open the door to him as he stands on the doorstep and work on the M. They are just rings after all and only have the significance you place on them. I'm not suggesting you do that if it doesn't feel right to you, but maybe it would help to just lighten things up a bit if you could say, OK, I'm here too, I'm willing to work on our M even though I'm not feeling everything I want to feel right now. It is more like thinking about love as an action rather than a feeling. Just a thought for you to take or leave.
I do feel I have made this a bigger deal than it needed to be - one of those things that eats away at you and you try and say nothing, waiting for them to act, and knowing that if you say something and they act, you feel like they are only doing it because you asked them to. Respect to H as he has not taken action lol. He has made lots of references over the last few days to me being his wife ("happy wife =happy life" kind of things!). I'm still learning and still confused May, as with your H, I don't get the ILYs, but he does tell me he loves me when we're having R conversations. (I get it..."in love" vs something else). GD this is hard! Thank you so much for your support

Originally Posted by cwarrior
Have you thought about scheduling some IC sessions for that purpose?
Hi Cwarrior, I haven't had regular IC for a while although it was helping earlier in the year. I guess what I felt relief over this week was that my feelings were being aired and heard in front of H. Maybe I've been more confident in talking about how I feel, MC has encouraged me to speak up after I said that I always felt my feelings were being quashed and that I was being pushed into the corner to suck up and accept H's behaviours. I think I am becoming more vocal about what I will and won't put up with. I kind of like that. I actually feel like H is starting to take me more seriously. Perhaps I'm finally learning about boundaries smile


M:49 H:49
T:20 M:18
D:16 D:14

EA: Feb 2019-May 2020
Separated: Mar-early Aug 2020
H asked to reconcile: Jun 2020
EA relapse: Oct/Nov 2020
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Originally Posted by Pommy99
I guess what I felt relief over this week was that my feelings were being aired and heard in front of H. Maybe I've been more confident in talking about how I feel, MC has encouraged me to speak up after I said that I always felt my feelings were being quashed and that I was being pushed into the corner to suck up and accept H's behaviours. I think I am becoming more vocal about what I will and won't put up with. I kind of like that. I actually feel like H is starting to take me more seriously. Perhaps I'm finally learning about boundaries smile


This is great Pommy. We teach people how to treat us. Your H is allowed to feel whatever he wants to. So you are you. It's not an either/or situation... it's about learning how to hold both.

I think being vocal is often the first step to learning boundaries because it's a way for us to "pump ourselves up". It's a way of looking in the mirror and saying "I want to be treated this way. I am worth of being treated this way". And that's such a great and crucial step.. so Kudos.

Now that you have said those things to your H - what does it look in actions? How do you not get pushed into that corner? That's the next step and will most likely be the step when the real ugly push back will begin.


M(f): 40
D'ed: 8/12

Show empathy when there's pain. Show grace when warranted. Kindness in the midst of anger. Faith in the face of fear.

Love at all costs because you are loved well.
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Pommy... I think your feelings about focusing too much on OW and the affair are probably correct. The affair was not about the OW...she was just the “fix” for whatever it was that was missing in your MR. Focus on that. The more you do, the less it will matter what he did when. All of that is in the past. You can’t change it so let it go and make the creation of MR 2.0 your priority. IMO...getting answers to all of your questions won’t do anything except increase your resentment over what he did (doesn’t matter if it is justified or not) and make him feel more ashamed. I don’t think that will do either of you any good in the long run. (((HUGS)))

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Pommy, I go on record in this forum all the time as saying that there is NOTHING wrong with saying "he cheated, I can't handle that as it is one of my dealbreakers" and Ding him. That is completely within your rights to do. Even the most conservative of Christian religions allows for D in the case of infidelity.

But you have to make that choice. Either put the A in the rearview mirror and move forward, and admit you will never be able to get over it and end your D. Dealbreakers are good. We should all have them. And if one of them gets violated then we should be willing to stand by our principles and end things. Nothing is weaker than having a dealbreaker, and then letting it get violated. As Valeska said, we teach others how to treat us. If we give up on our principles as soon as our S violates one then we've taught them that it ok to violate principles by letting them get away with it.

Never compromise on your principles.


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How are things going, Pommy? Thinking of you! xx


Me (46) H (42)
M:14 T:18, D9 & D11
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Hello DBers….it's been a while!

I didn't intentionally stop posting....but a bunch of things happened in succession and I just didn't feel in the right headspace to share it all.

The last time I posted, the story as we knew it (mid Oct) was that H and I had been trying to reconcile for 3 months. He hadn't seen EAP for over 6 months. In mid Sept I caught him texting her after she had contacted him (supposedly after several months of no contact) to tell him she had cancer. H was reluctant to go NC with her given her diagnosis but eventually broke contact 2 weeks later. Some of that story as we knew it was BS.

In a nutshell, this is what happened since
- Mid-Oct - we all got Covid
- End Oct - H asked me to put my rings back on
- BD mid November - affair relapse - H and OW were caught emailing (intimately) by her H. I asked H to leave.
- H begged and pleaded for me to give him another chance. ILY, and I AM ILWY, etc. I took some time on this
- Pre-Xmas - H opened up and shared a lot about the A, wanted a fresh start for the M, but also became ambivalent as A withdrawal hit
- Post-Xmas - H seriously grieving, very depressed
- H now in IC and feeling happier, NC with OW since Nov BD, H's commitment to trying is high. Still missing the 'in love' piece of the R
- Pommy??? Good days/bad days, no idea how this is going to pan out.

In more detail:
Covid - we all got off lightly, fortunately. I felt more tired than anything, and the second week very depressed - that was probably more to do with H than Covid

Rings - went out for dinner to celebrate end of our quarantine - H asked me to put my rings on. The next day we had a fantastic day out and we chose a beautiful gift for my forthcoming birthday

Bomb Drop - H told me he'd been in contact with OW, to find out how her treatment was going. He said this was about 3-4 weeks prior (while we had Covid) and they'd messaged for about a week. I was angry and upset that he'd reneged on NC. I later took his phone and looked at his sent mail. There was an email trail from the day before - they'd got caught by her H. OW blamed H for her getting caught out. Her H was going to send me the emails. I asked H what the h3ll was going on, what was in the emails - apparently ILY, sexual things. I told H I was insulted that he felt worthy of wearing his wedding ring - he promptly took it off. That night, I asked him to leave, that he was not a H to me. The following day he asked me if I still felt the same. Yes I still felt the same. He was pretty distraught, said he would break contact with OW immediately. I was calm and told him I didn't care if he rode off into the sunset with her. It was too late, they were welcome to each other. Later, he showed me a txt - he'd told OW he'd told me everything and he arranged to call her that afternoon. Told me he was going to end all contact. I just shrugged and said do what you need to do, it doesn't affect me. He went out to call her and came back and sent her a follow-up text in front of me to say that he wouldn't be contacting her again and didn't want to hear from her again. I just shrugged again. At that point I think he felt he'd lost everything - me, his family, his home - and OW.

I was calm but I felt decisive. The next day he pleaded with me to give him another chance - to think about what I would be giving up. I just shook my head - he'd gone and risked everything and now wanted me to think about what I would be giving up. He was a mess - breaking down etc.

In the midst of the calmness I felt this immense loss. I saw myself standing there with a massive hole right through my body where he had ripped my heart out. The pain was incredible.

Over the coming days H started to show some remorse and humility that I hadn't seen before. He talked about his shame, the pain he'd caused, how he hated himself, how he wanted to find his moral compass again, to be of value to me, to prove he could be a good husband. We talked more openly and he told me a huge amount that I hadn't known before. That not being in contact from June-Sep was a lie, that in Sept they had been emailing that they missed each other back then. I asked him where he had wanted the R with her to go, what did he think was going to happen when I found out. He said he thought I would always be there. We explored some A articles and he finally began to relate to the concept of limerence, addiction, relapse. That being in contact with her every few weeks was a dopamine fix. He talked about the fact that he knew he didn't like her that much, that he'd glossed over all her faults, when she replied it made him anxious, she made him feel bad about himself, that she was manipulative and controlling, yet at the same time she'd been the one to pull him out of a hole when him and I were in our worst place, and being in contact with her gave him a lift. It made sense but it didn't excuse his choices or the way he had treated me.

My birthday was approaching - I told H that I did not want the gift as it would always remind me of a time that he cheated on me. H wanted to reframe it as representing a fresh start for the both of us.

In the run up to Xmas, as I started to lean in, H started to lean out again. A month had passed - at this point he would usually have been in contact with OW again - he was suffering withdrawal and I was completely without trust . H was adamant that he didn't want to walk that path again, but was clearly not in a happy place. I didn't want to make any decisions before Xmas for the sake of the children.

In the NY H got himself an IC. He was incredibly depressed. Things felt very unstable and I felt very insecure. H was ambivalent and could not commit to the M. But he would commit to "trying" to make it work. I struggled with this concept

As Jan wore on, my feelings started to change towards H. We were closer, more intimate - but I'd been in that place before. I was frightened of my feelings and vulnerability but at the same time I enjoyed how it felt. H was still all over the place and swung between loving and affectionate to unsure about our future. The ILYs were rare but he started to talk more about the future, and things that would involve the both of us. Feb was calm and H seemed to make real progress with IC. We've had a few blow ups which have been reminiscent of old dynamics - not good - but we are learning to deal with them better.

Where we are now is that H is completely in a place where he accepts and understands that it is going to take time for his feelings to return for me - if they ever do. He is committed to making it work - but that's not the same as re-committing to the M. He is driving this, he says he wants this. We have read articles and talked with our MC that seem to indicate that it takes time for feelings to come back, and it's normal for those to be missing for many months, and to expect 12-18 months before being in a place of being able to fully commit. That's the bit I struggle with. Save 2 weeks in Nov, I haven't worn my rings the whole 9 months that we have been reconciling. Of course for me, I am already 2 years into this journey since BD, so every passing month where we are not where I want us to be is like a ticking time bomb.

I don't know if we will ever get there. I don't know if we will ever get beyond being good companions and find passion between us - it's been missing for so long. For a long time I wanted to save this M on principle, for my kids, for fear, as well as feeling that I loved H. Now that we are getting to know and understand each other better, I realise that I am capable of loving him so much more deeply. That scares me, and at times I think it is pushing me backwards - when I don't get what I crave from the R, the security, the deep love, I feel anxious and my walls go up. I feel scared to love and be vulnerable - it's not a good place to be.

In the last week or 2 H has talked about turning a corner in regard to OW, that he can see that he was grieving and that he is now moving through that. The good feelings she invoked are being nullified by the realization that she wasn't always nice to him and that his early doubts about her were right. I do feel she is firmly in the rear view mirror....which means it's now simply me, H and our M.

H talks about the future, he is trying so, so hard to meet my needs. Yet I feel so anxious and I don't know what it is that I need that would make that go away. I know a large part of it is uncertainty - and he cant give me that. I know the romance and passion isn't flowing and I wonder if we'll ever be able to recreate that. This month is hard and I do feel very down - 2 yr anniversary of BD, 1 yr anniversary of H moving out, H's B'day - in which OW played a huge part (sabotaged) the last 2 years. And finally, our wedding anniversary - I don't even know how to deal with an anniversary. I restart IC tomorrow.


M:49 H:49
T:20 M:18
D:16 D:14

EA: Feb 2019-May 2020
Separated: Mar-early Aug 2020
H asked to reconcile: Jun 2020
EA relapse: Oct/Nov 2020
Recon #2: since Nov 2020
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