I'll tell you what I'm telling myself. It's all I can give you. I hope it helps.
Your husband has been living a fantasy life.
Have you ever lived a fantasy life?
It is exhilirating.
And, it doesn't seem like a fantasy. It seems like at last you have found life as it is supposed to be.
Then BAM! Reality slaps him in the face. (He gets caught - has to decide if he's going to get on the plane or stay on fantasy island).
He knows and knew his fantasy was "wrong", but it felt so gosh darned right.
And it is confusing.
He didn't do it to you. He didn't hate you. He didn't take those actions with the intent of hurting you.
He was just taking care of himself.
It was almost an act of survival. To find himself. To find energy, to find where his hopes and dreams went. And, here it is, right here on the island!
And, it seems like right now he has a choice to make between a reality that doesn't deliver his every need on a silver platter and a fantasy where everything seems to come true with ease.
He is only human. To look at the fantasy, to have experienced it, and how to give it up?
It takes a man of great strength and character to first understand that the fantasy is like a drug, it will never really meet his needs, it is shallow. And then, to walk away from that mere possibility that maybe in his case it will somehow meet some deep unmet need that he can't even understand, explain, or put into words. (Ok...we're talking about a man who just took the weakest, most insecure, path for resolving his problems and now we're asking him to have "great strength and character"! He's not feeling that he's a man of great strength and character right now...so give him a break.)
It is so difficult when you know that you, the BS, are the victim and have to offer compassion to the one
who hurt you. To offer an open heart, understanding, and trust in his human struggle. When all you need is for him to validate you, your relationship, and your love. And, to offer compassion and forgiveness without anger and hate and the intent to hurt back the one who has hurt you so deeply.
Give him a break - he IS struggling. That is evident in the mixed messages.
Give yourself a break - you are in pain and when we are in pain it is difficult to be our best selves, the one our WS most needs us to be.
One minute you hate him, one minute you love him.
One minute he cares deeply, the next the marriage is "unfixable".
It's a dance. Let him feel both emotions as you feel both emotions.
Let time pass, let emotions cool, find routines and stability in your life. Rebuild your confidence. We often put in the hands of our spouse the responsibility to "make us feel pretty, sexy, strong, good" whatever it is that are our own insecurities. Well, guess what - that's our responsibility. We are the only ones that can control what we are and are not insecure about. So get to work on that - its hard work and it'll keep your mind occupied with something other than the affair. Take your power over you back into your hands. You entrusted it to him and he trounced on it. So just take it back. You won't even need to give it to him again because you are going to nourish it and grow it yourself for the rest of your life! I think we women do this to prove our men out, but they haven't a clue that we are doing it and they often disappoint us - some more tragically than others. (Male BS, just substitute BS for women if you feel its appropriate to you great!)
At the end of each day, think about how many minutes or hours you spent completely engrossed in something else -work, taking care of kids, a book, a movie, whatever. I remember thinking within the first few days that some small thing happened - my dog did something silly and I relished that minute where I smiled and was taken completely away from the issue. It was only a minute but that was when I first realized that if there could be one minute affair free then there could be 2! And, now 3 months later there are hours and sometimes almost whole days.
It might even make him feel worse to know that you are willing to stay and fight for the marriage even when he's done this horrible thing that has hurt you so badly. It may add to his confusion. He's wondering if he's a bad person at heart, he's wondering if he can look himself in the mirror, he's wondering if he can look at you without being reminded of how good you are and how bad he is. You have given him a priceless gift and he doesn't recognize the bucket of diamonds sitting in his lap. But, give him a break the island is distracting him from the bucket of diamonds. I don't know what to say you should do. Maybe say, "If you decide you want to fight for this marriage, I will fight tooth and nail for it. But, if you don't, then let's call a spade a spade and get on with our separate lives. I'll be ok and you'll be ok...(you little sh@! -whoops did I type that out loud -sorry, you do have to be able to do that without attitude!)"
Have you considered that maybe he did it and he wanted you to be so mad that you would just walk away so that he wouldn't have to make the decision and be the "bad" person. Now he's freakin' out because you didn't! No matter what, I don't think he would have done that as a strategic plan because I don't believe that any of this is a well thought out plan to have some result at the end. It's reactionary.
It does help that your in MC together. I think that it helps us to be together, although I had to leave our house for a couple days because his face was a trigger and I loved him and hated him every other second and I was going crazy.
Go to a lawyer, educate yourself now. The best thing that will come of it is that you'll protect yourself, the worst thing is that you'll have a little extra knowledge to share with your girlfriends that are going through divorce. It's a sound investment in either case.
Good luck. In 30 minutes, I will be celebrating my first anniversary of a marriage of which the last 5 months have been dealing with the start, discovery, and recovery of an affair. So, my mood is mixed. I love the little sh@!
