One issue still to resolve even after 2 and a half years

[waterwoman]

I think H and I still have one issue to resolve. This is long. Sorry.

 

DDay was 26th June 2012. I was beginning to feel suspicious due to H’s moodiness, his irritation with the children and our home life in general, and some pretty heavy hints he had dropped about rumours (about him and colleague) circulating at school. First time ever I checked his phone for texts. And found some loving but not overtly sexual messages. Had 24 hours of trickle-truth and minimising. They were ‘just friends’, he was supporting her through a bad time etc. I let myself be superficially reassured and we warily tip-toed around each other all day.

 

That night H told me that he wasn’t sure what he wanted – whether he wanted to stay married to me. He never directly said he wanted to leave, just that he wasn’t sure. Next day he left for work and I expected the next time I saw him he would be packing a bag and leaving. At this point I didn’t know which way was up – my head was spinning. He rang my friend, who had come to support me and mop up my puddles of tears, while she was with me. He heard me crying and walked out of the school and came home to me. That was it. No more talk of leaving.

 

The next day, after work, I finally got the facts. I gave him my requirements and with one exception he fulfilled them (and even that happened eventually). We have been doing OK.

 

BUT ....there is one thing that still niggles and it has affected my feelings of safety and my self-esteem all the way through. The one thing is the fact that he was thinking of leaving me. Even if it was briefly, he still wanted to leave.

 

It hurts because if he really wanted to go, it might mean that

 

1. All the time I pretended the outcome was in my hands and if he wanted to stay he had to do x, y and z – that was a lie. I wasn’t holding any aces in my hand after all.

 

2, He is only here because he felt guilty or scared.

 

3. He isn’t where he wants to be.

 

4. I am worthless and had been a poor wife and that is why he wanted to leave.

 

His answers to why were:

 

1. In a row the previous week when he had been an utter selfish arse to the children, I had told him I should have left him years ago. I was furious. I have been guilty of using my words as a weapon (something I have worked on since dday). He heard those words and believed them. OW had ‘ended’ (ha!) their relationship the day before and I guess he was feeling sore.

 

2. Life had changed for the worst in the last 10 years (since DS2 was born)

 

3. He doesn’t remember what he was thinking –it was a blur. Well if so it was a blur that lasted overnight and into the next morning. I find it hard to believe he can’t remember

 

4. I asked him if he wanted to leave because he was afraid of telling me the truth. He said no.

 

 

He said what he said and unlike me he doesn’t use words in anger to cause hurt. He said it because he meant it and I don’t believe he would have been so hurtful if there wasn’t a reason to say it.

 

I am reluctant to bring it all up again. We have hardly talked about it all for so long – it will feel artificial now. How do I go about this? Or should I let sleeping dogs lie?

[purplesorrow]

You held the cards for YOUR outcome. If he didn't meet x,y,z you would have been done correct? His actions nor words define your worth. If you take a steak off your plate and replace it with a drumstick, it doesn't make the steak any less yummy. Nor does it stop being a steak. You are still just as valuable as you were before he stepped out. You haven't worked on you enough. You need to find a you that YOU really love again.

And the fact that you are uncomfortable bringing up an issue that you need resolved speaks volumes. Don't live in the shadows of your marriage.

Edited December 5, 2014 by purplesorrow

[waterwoman]

No, you are right purple, it needs talking about.

 

I struggle with self-worth. Always have. Worse since dday.

[thirtysomethingteen]

If you are feeling insecure you need to communicate this to your husband - otherwise you will always wonder and it will chip away at both your marriage and your self-esteem.

 

After D-day I asked my husband some of the same questions over and over and over. I kept asking until I no longer worried and felt the need - your WH answering your questions is part of the reconcilliation process and he should not shy away from them.

 

I hope this issue resolves itself so you can get some peace of mind. In the meantime, try to do something nice for yourself. :-)

[TrustedthenBusted]

it just takes a lot of time. Thoughts of leaving or being left will probably alway creep into your mind from time to time. But this would probably still be the case, with or without the infidelity. I think it's just natural for married people to sometimes wish they weren't.

 

Focus on the things you two do well and make you happy, and then do them often. If you need to talk, talk. It won't seem artificial if you are telling him how you feel about something.

 

Just be sure to tell him that this is HOW YOU FEEL. Not that it's necessarily based on reality... just that it's how you're feeling.

[HereNorThere]

The title of your post is "One issue still to resolve even after 2 and a half years" but it's not really one issue, it's the entirety of the issue.

 

I think you're hitting the wall where you realize that there is no way that this will ever just go away. A lot of BS think there where be this magic moment where everything is made right again and they get their old peace of mind back, but that's not how this works. When you go to battle and get an arm blown off, you don't regrow an arm, you learn to live with one arm.

 

There is no going back. You must learn to live with your life as it now.

[Rainbowlove]

I think it's important for you to bring this topic up for discussion. It doesn't matter how long ago it was.

 

Something my spouse and I have agreed upon in our recovery is that discussing the affair, regardless of questions each of us may have, is always a safe topic and something that needs to be addressed whenever wherever. I was sometimes afraid to bring it up, but I've found each time I do, it allows for more healing and growth and I think we always feel better after each talk, certainly not worse.

 

Tip toeing around the subject or our feelings is not resolving anything.

 

Say what you need to say. He should be all ears with an open heart.

[jnel921]

WW, did you ever get all of the answers you wanted from your H? It doesn't seem like it. We are about the same time out since D-Day. Mine was in Oct 2012 but I am over wondering about his feelings about us back then.

 

He answered all of my questions and is with me now. That is what is important.

 

Do you feel like you made him stay with your tears or that he had no other choice because he was left by the OW already? You need him to clarify if you are still wondering these things. You should be in a better place feeling that he genuinely wants to be there with you.

 

I get thinking about it every now and then, but I wont allow it to rile me up and make me feel any other way about my H other than grateful that he made the right choice, me.

 

If things are good in your M maybe you should work on containing those feelings.

[whichwayisup]

Write him a long letter about how you feel and why this is still an sore spot and an issue with you. He needs to acknowledge your pain, he needs to be completely honest, even if it hurts to hear. You two have to solve this soon together, otherwise it'll eat up the better times you two have had in the past 2 years and who knows what damage it'll cause more in the future.

 

Sit beside him while he reads your letter, talk about it or ask him to write you a letter back. Might be a good way of communicating, sometimes reading words sinks in more than hearing them.

 

At this point I didn’t know which way was up –

 

Had to give this a bit of attention.

[waterwoman]

"I was being forced to face a major crisis in my life and I didn't want to. I wanted to run away."

 

If he could have just said that in the first place it would have been easier. I have a tendency to be CA - I can understand the motivation. But when he had his change of mind in school and came home to see me in he middle of the morning I did notice that his whole demeanour had changed.

[fellini]

It might also depend on what you believe to be (and this is hard enough to get because we rely on liars to get us there!") the state of mind of the WS at the time of the A.

 

My WS "compartimentalised" her life sufficiently to allow her to have one of those affairs in which she did not ever get to a point to bring herself to either stop, make a decision, think of consequences, ask herself how she got here, question herself even about if she really did have "everything under control". i.e. She could go out and have sex with her AP (single man) with whom she had believed she was "in love" and "worth leaving me for", and yet, return home and go into life-as-usual mode.

 

I had this same nagging question about D-Hour (5 minutes into DDay) because my first question upon hearing that she was "seeing someone else" (how is that for a blow - not "Im having an affair" but I'm SEEING someone else as though we're a teenage couple who had been separated by a summer holiday...) Anyhow. Through my numbness I somehow came to ask a simple question: Are you prepared to end it? And the answer wasn't Yes. (It wasn't a straight No either, but what's diff? Anything not a Yes is a no...) So with that piece of information I said, fine, Im not going to be able to discuss this with you, Im going to discuss this with some friends. And I left her immediately alone for about 2 hours.

 

Like you - although not the next day, but only 2 hours later. I asked the same question, and this time she said yes.

 

So today, although not having read this thread, I brought up during our discussion this question. "Why did you decide to stay in those two hours?" What changed your mind? And of course she gave me all kinds of great reasons - to which I reminded her those reasons came about as a direct response to the 3 weeks of work we ended up doing together later: Why did she not say it was over then and there. Was it that she was expecting, hoping, in fact that I would walk? Ask her to leave? Her fear to make the step she convinced herself she wanted to make for nearly two years?

 

I really think it's hard - even after 18 months post DDay to get the answer, or even ANY ANSWER when so much water has passed under the bridge, and we have traveled so far downstream. But you are right, it is as if part of us got caught in an eddy passing through that stream, and remains there moving in circles, never being sucked into the maelstrom where it can disappear after layers and layers of time. We remain in that eddy asking ourselves the question over and over: Why did you REALLY decide to stay, or WERE you REALLY that far gone that you were prepared to LEAVE, so WHY DIDN'T YOU?

 

In order to escape that eddy I am going to have to take the worst case scenario to heart: She was leaving me and she simply panicked like the coward she was and through time, through the recovery has come to rediscover the I PREFER TO STAY would have been the better answer had it come to mind at the time: Even though it was not!

 

I am almost certain that the real answer is something like: "I decided to stay because in two hours I weighed the narcisstic supply from my AP against the negative effects on my persona that this affair would bring if it came to light. The image of myself I have carefully built up over the years of myself as a wife, a mother, a decent moral person, how my professional colleagues and students in the university see me... Matter more to me than this one man. Yes I want him, but not at the cost to my public reputation." Hardly the basis to stay in a marriage I know, but through hard work and diligence, I think other reasons to stay become the new mantra: I love my spouse, I really do love being in a family, this house, this life, our friends... all the things that are not recognised when a WS finally begins to centre him/herself and they begin to weigh values that were discarded in the heat and passion of the affair.

 

I need to be able to ask myself, does it make a difference that she stayed for the "wrong reasons" if after hard work, she is now, and I am now staying for the right ones?

 

It requires an enormous leap of faith, on both parts, but the BS needs to make that leap to get out of the eddy.

Edited December 8, 2014 by fellini

[elaine567]

I think that due to your husbands affair, you are insecure in your marriage. Instead of it being based on solid rocks, there are now some loose boulders around in the foundations, loose boulders that you want to fix permanently in place.

You want to know why he wanted to leave, because the thought is making you unsettled and it is that thought that is difficult to live with.

You are worried that if you do not fix things permanently now, he will just up and leave one day.

 

Trouble is, we cannot read another person's mind, we can hear what they say, we can deduce by their actions but we don't really know and we will never really know their deepest thoughts.

 

I would guess there are a range of reasons why he wanted to leave, some he may have given you, but I am sure there are some, you may not want to contemplate and some, he will have kept to himself.

His reasons for staying are similar, some will be nebulous, some will be pragmatic, some you may not want to hear and others may give you a warm, fuzzy feeling.

However, why he really stayed will remain with him, whatever he says.

I am not saying he is necessarily lying about this, but his words will be designed to protect him, to protect you, to protect his kids, to protect his way of life etc. etc. as that is what we all do daily.

We all tend to choose our words to protect ourselves to protect someone else, to protect our way of life, to keep the peace.

 

In normal everyday life we say things, we do things, we make decisions, but we do not tend to pore over every syllable, every thought process, we just get on with life.

D-day has turned your life upside down, but dissecting every little bit of it is not going to do you any good.

Two and a half years down the line, he will have rationalised to himself why he wanted to leave and why he stayed, he has had a lot of time to think and if asked now, he will present the finished article to you.

It may be very different to the jumbled up, emotionally charged thought processes he left with on that day he went to work immediately post D-day, but the clear thing here is that he has stayed with you.

That is what you have to take comfort from and that is what you have to focus on, losing focus by chasing imponderables will get you nowhere.

[fellini]

I agree with much of what you say, but in the end I too going through a similar issue with my WS am asking these questions, and I would say there are two things to think about:

 

1. Regardless of WHY he choose or wavered in the past, WHY IS HE WITH YOU TODAY - that is the accomplishment of recovery work, one hopes - because if after two years I thought the only reason my WS is still with me is because she is still a coward and shudders at the thought that dissolving our marriage would mean her sordid affair would come to light, I DO NOT CONSIDER THIS A POSITIVE REASON NOT TO ASK and ACT accordingly. IT puts into question the whole concept of Empathy (or lack of it). It demonstrates that the marriage is simply a marriage of convenience. Nothing to do with what might happen in the future, contrary to your conclusion: it has to do with the quality of life possible in the very present.

 

2. You are correct that these answers are difficult to get out of a WS. But one has to ask oneself if one can live with the most definitive version the WS has to offer. If the WS cannot convince me after 2 years that they have done the work to ask themselves the same question: and it is the WS who really needs to ask and answer this question. Then maybe the marriage is not worth saving for this reason either.

 

 

I think that due to your husbands affair, you are insecure in your marriage. Instead of it being based on solid rocks, there are now some loose boulders around in the foundations, loose boulders that you want to fix permanently in place.

You want to know why he wanted to leave, because the thought is making you unsettled and it is that thought that is difficult to live with.

You are worried that if you do not fix things permanently now, he will just up and leave one day.

 

Trouble is, we cannot read another person's mind, we can hear what they say, we can deduce by their actions but we don't really know and we will never really know their deepest thoughts.

 

I would guess there are a range of reasons why he wanted to leave, some he may have given you, but I am sure there are some, you may not want to contemplate and some, he will have kept to himself.

His reasons for staying are similar, some will be nebulous, some will be pragmatic, some you may not want to hear and others may give you a warm, fuzzy feeling.

However, why he really stayed will remain with him, whatever he says.

I am not saying he is necessarily lying about this, but his words will be designed to protect him, to protect you, to protect his kids, to protect his way of life etc. etc. as that is what we all do daily.

We all tend to choose our words to protect ourselves to protect someone else, to protect our way of life, to keep the peace.

 

In normal everyday life we say things, we do things, we make decisions, but we do not tend to pore over every syllable, every thought process, we just get on with life.

D-day has turned your life upside down, but dissecting every little bit of it is not going to do you any good.

Two and a half years down the line, he will have rationalised to himself why he wanted to leave and why he stayed, he has had a lot of time to think and if asked now, he will present the finished article to you.

It may be very different to the jumbled up, emotionally charged thought processes he left with on that day he went to work immediately post D-day, but the clear thing here is that he has stayed with you.

That is what you have to take comfort from and that is what you have to focus on, losing focus by chasing imponderables will get you nowhere.

Edited December 8, 2014 by fellini

[waterwoman]

"... is that he has stayed with you.

That is what you have to take comfort from and that is what you have to focus on, losing focus by chasing imponderables will get you nowhere. "

 

I guess that is the best way to look at it. But it is so hard at times.

[waterwoman]

I know what I have to do. THere is only one course of action for me now. I have to beleive that he is where he wants to be and that if he changes his mind he has to tell me.

 

But I can't seem to do it. Not all the time. My depression is part of the issue I know. I am thinking about further IC.

[elaine567]

Yes, but few WS are going to say under reconciliation conditions something that will render the reconciliation untenable.

If for instance a WS has pretty much had it with a BS, no love, no attraction but wants/needs to stay for the kids, wants the lifestyle, wants a firm base

and wants to stay married because his/her job/church/circle prefers stable relationships, then they are not going to say to the BS

"If I had no commitments I would be out of here in an instant as frankly I do not love you."

- it may be truth but no WS in reconciliation would say that, as the reconciliation would go nowhere.

NO amount of "work" is going to make the WS sabotage the R, if R is what they want, by telling the real truth.

 

I am not saying that all R are based on continuing lies and deceit, some WS do genuinely love their spouses and are heart sorry that they caused everyone so much pain

and will never cheat again and are determined to fix their marriage but my point is that how do you differentiate?

You can't really, as time goes on you may suspect that things are not really rosy and that the WS is living a lie, but unless you prescribe daily truth serum, then all there is

is "trust" and the fact they stay in the marriage.

 

I agree with much of what you say, but in the end I too going through a similar issue with my WS am asking these questions, and I would say there are two things to think about:

 

1. Regardless of WHY he choose or wavered in the past, WHY IS HE WITH YOU TODAY - that is the accomplishment of recovery work, one hopes - because if after two years I thought the only reason my WS is still with me is because she is still a coward and shudders at the thought that dissolving our marriage would mean her sordid affair would come to light, I DO NOT CONSIDER THIS A POSITIVE REASON NOT TO ASK and ACT accordingly. IT puts into question the whole concept of Empathy (or lack of it). It demonstrates that the marriage is simply a marriage of convenience. Nothing to do with what might happen in the future, contrary to your conclusion: it has to do with the quality of life possible in the very present.

 

2. You are correct that these answers are difficult to get out of a WS. But one has to ask oneself if one can live with the most definitive version the WS has to offer. If the WS cannot convince me after 2 years that they have done the work to ask themselves the same question: and it is the WS who really needs to ask and answer this question. Then maybe the marriage is not worth saving for this reason either.

[oldshirt]

I think H and I still have one issue to resolve.

 

 

BUT ....there is one thing that still niggles and it has affected my feelings of safety and my self-esteem all the way through. The one thing is the fact that he was thinking of leaving me. Even if it was briefly, he still wanted to leave.

 

It hurts because if he really wanted to go, it might mean that

 

1. All the time I pretended the outcome was in my hands and if he wanted to stay he had to do x, y and z – that was a lie. I wasn’t holding any aces in my hand after all.

 

those were YOUR aces. Those were your requirements for staying. He had his own requirements for staying and could've walked at any time. In the end people tend to do what they want. 49% of him may have wanted to leave at one particular point in time, but 51% of him didn't. Actions always speak louder than words and his actions were he stayed. Actions always trump words.

 

 

 

2, He is only here because he felt guilty or scared.

 

or felt there was still a chance and didn't want to throw in the towel until all options were exhausted. I'm a guy and I have left LTRs before. When a guy wants to leave and believes that is the best option, he leaves. Guilt and fear may make you delay the actual walk-out temporarily but once the next aftershock hits, it's Splitsville.

 

3. He isn’t where he wants to be.

 

I think we've all been in a place we don't really want to be temporarily. What spells the difference is when you know it's temporary. Don't confuse the girls with the boys. Women will endure pain and dissatisfaction and will self-sacrifice and martyr themselves indefinitely. Men won't. Men leave when they know that's what they want.

 

4. I am worthless and had been a poor wife and that is why he wanted to leave.

 

thats just self-pity.

 

 

His answers to why were:

 

1. In a row the previous week when he had been an utter selfish arse to the children, I had told him I should have left him years ago.

 

words are like bullets and can't be called back after they've been fired. Once launched All you can do is hope the damage they cause can be fixed. h

 

 

2. Life had changed for the worst in the last 10 years (since DS2 was born)

 

he has responsibility to make life as good as possible for himself too. He can't just put that all on you.

 

3. He doesn’t remember what he was thinking –

 

he remembers. He may not still feel the same way and may see it differently now however.

 

 

 

4. I asked him if he wanted to leave because he was afraid of telling me the truth. He said no.

 

 

again, don't confuse the boys with the girls. Women are heavily influenced by things like fear and anxiety and guilt etc, men aren't. Women may self-sacrifice out of fear and guilt etc, men generally don't. Don't judge his feelings and behaviors based on how you would feel and what you would do.

 

 

He said what he said and unlike me he doesn’t use words in anger to cause hurt. He said it because he meant it and I don’t believe he would have been so hurtful if there wasn’t a reason to say it.

 

he may have meant in that moment. He changed his mind. You chicks do it all the time and want people to accept that. Allow him the same prerogative.

 

I am reluctant to bring it all up again. We have hardly talked about it all for so long – it will feel artificial now. How do I go about this? Or should I let sleeping dogs lie?

 

 

IMHO that depends on if it is a pertinent factor in your reconciliation or if it is just an insecurity that has no basis in fact. Using the actions speak louder than words concept, is there anything taking place that indicates he want out now? Is he looking for an apartment? Is he packing bags? Is he pursuing other women? Is he squirreling funds into an individual account? Is he consulting divorce attorneys? Is he seeking employment in a different geographical location.

 

As far as words, is he discussing separation/divorce in pragmatic and practical terms?

 

Do you have any valid reason to believe he is not committed to staying???

 

If the answer is a logical yes that 9 out of 10 other people would agree is a warning sign, then you should address it directly.

 

If the you have virtually no objective reason to believe anything is underfoot then it is likely a personal insecurity and it's some that needs to be dealt with by you on your end.

 

 

 

Responses in bold above