About 1 1/2 weeks ago, my H told me that after 13+ years of marriage and two children, he no longer wanted to be married to me. He denied being involved with anyone, and said he just decided he'd had enough. After the third time of asking if there was an OW, he admitted to an A with OW from work for about a month, but said this had nothing to do with his decision. The next day, he changed his mind and wanted to work it out with me. That day he changed crews at work to not run into the OW, called and broke off with the OW, and disposed of his cell phone. After both taking vacation and spending many days together, we seemed to communicate well and worked out a lot of issues that were harming our M. A couple days later, he was confused again and wanted me to know he wasn't sure what he wanted, and he still had thoughts of the OW and doubts about us. A couple days later, he was full of remorse and commited to working it out again. We had one session of MC a few days ago, and he says he's never felt better. He's also started IC as well. How do you ride this roller coaster out and know that the intentions are truly to work things out? I don't know if I could go through this pain again. Any suggestions on staying strong and focused? I'm also afraid I'm coming off as desparate and too eager to work things out after being betrayed.
Your husband's see-sawing is something that often seems to happen. It could be caused by many things, but one big potential is that he has seen or spoken to the OW when he starts to have doubts about the marriage. This is one big reason why no-contact with the OW is the best policy going forward. The idea behind it is that any communication between him and her or between you and her tends to keep the affair alive. Changing crews was a good step toward getting the no contact in place, but if there are other ways in which contact can occur, then he should take measures to eliminate those too.
I understand the desire to 'not look desparate'. I felt that I was also too desparate when my wife told me about the affair. However, I also believe that we should be open with our spouses and let them know how we feel.
Recovery is a long work for the couple, and it will take a big commitment from both of you to work through the tough times. I'm not sure that he has given his full commitment to the process. It sounds like you want to, but are afraid to show it to him (which I understand). I needed my wife to make a bold commitment, and I asked her if she was going to drop out when the recovery was too hard. I don't think I could reconcile with her if I was going to be required to keep my anger and my other feelings to myself. She gave me a guarentee, and this helped me go forward.
Also, I think one hinderance to recovery is when the BS is afraid to show the hurt they've experienced to their spouse. However, I've come to realize that at least in my case, it's when I do that in a non-destructive way that my wife is able to understand the seriousness of what she did, and how deeply it affected me. A lot of people call this "taking care of yourself", so if you hear that term, I think that's what they might be talking about.
Marital recovery can't happen unless there is also recovery of the betrayed and the betrayer. It sounds like you're working on that through counseling, which is good. I've heard it refered to as the three healings that must occur.... yourself, your spouse, and your marraige, in that order.
Thanks for your insight. It makes perfect sense. I'm just so angry, confused, sad, scared. Now that I look back, I see that our marriage was gradually going down hill for some time, and was lacking emotion and friendship. My H's demeanor changed dramatically and was very distant for the last couple of months, but I really (probably like most people) would have never thought I'd find myself in this situation. In fact, to my embarrassment, I often bragged to friends that my H would never do anything like that - he's too moral and loyal. Is it acceptable to ask him if he's had contact with the OW without damaging our rebuilding process? It drives me crazy to think about him having any contact with her and not telling me about it, and I need that reassurance that he hasn't, but I don't want him to feel attacked or backed into a corner. We did discuss this before, and he said he'd let me know if he had any contact with her, so I don't want to come across as mistrustful, but I guess at this point I am. I feel guilty for letting my marriage suffer, angry at him for betraying our family, and scared that he'll change his mind yet again. Our MC tells me that I'm a codependent person and that I need to start taking care of myself rather than everyone else - this is a very difficult thing for me to do. There's just so much to work out, I don't know where to start. Anyway, thanks for the ear and the good advice. It's nice to hear from someone who knows what I'm going through.
