If something's bothering you, lay it out. We're a supportive bunch with a lot of experience. You're anonymous and under absolutely no obligation to take any advice you get.
(signed) sisoon, who once couldn't get enough infidelity recovery statistics....
You posed some good questions. I also would like to see your responses. Good luck.
It's OK to have questions, doubts, etc. You don't have to have all the answers now, and you certainly don't have to make any decisions. Something that helps is having a FWS that doesn't push for answers or resolution, but realizes that they need to give you consistency and support until you start to feel like you can handle things again.
(((myperfectlife)))
[This message edited by myperfectlife at 12:49 PM, July 21st (Sunday)]
Then, my world blew apart & here I am with my fingers stuck to a keyboard still looking for answers. Sometimes I feel like I finally have my out and I can finally go find a normal relationship but, I'm not young & am not sure that I really know what "normal" looks like.
So why am I staying? I ask myself that at least twice a day. Just because my world blew up, I'm not ready to alter the lives of our children & grandchildren with this chaos that is my life right now. I'm committed to stay & attempt R because I don't want to look back at where I am in life and have any doubt that I did do my dead level best to turn my stupid lemons into lemonade. Today, if I were available & met my H knowing what I know about him? I wouldn't give him my number.
As frustrating as it is, you have to find your own reasons for plotting the future for yourself & your children. No magic bullets or red ruby slippers but, If you find that information we are all looking for, please share! [/bold]
[This message edited by outtanowhere at 1:21 PM, July 21st (Sunday)]
It's making a mental and emotional plan - preparedness - in case the WS crosses the line and hurts the BS again. Fantasizing about leaving is like building a callous on the heart? Or it's like an emotional stocking up on supplies in case of a hurricane or blizzard? The WS might hurt me again, but the WS will never hurt me as badly as he/she did on D-Day EVER again.
The BS whose WS are still foggy seem to be forever caught in the eggshell walking/fear/crying and begging stage and can't yet progress to esteem-building. They haven't had the option or control to fully reconcile, yet, so can't move to the recovering esteem stage. Those thoughts of reconciling BS about leaving or being resentful probably seem a luxury to the BS desperate to keep a family together. They are stuck in that mode, sometimes, and one of competition with OW, unable yet to get to the stage of evaluating whether reconciliation would truly be a win or a loss in their cases.
They are stuck in that mode, sometimes, and one of competition with OW, unable yet to get to the stage of evaluating whether reconciliation would truly be a win or a loss in their cases.
I think it is normal to question the decision to stay. I am almost 2 years since DDay and I still question the decision to stay - mainly because I trigger about pre A behavior.
Gotta love the life that we livin'
My fWW had a 4 month fog too...really really really sucked. Since then she is remorseful...but would not put her in the class of others who say their WS is REALLY remorseful and doing all they can. But she is not in the group of WS who tell BS to just get over it...so she is in the middle.
Sisoon has wisdom...I, too, am a statistic nut. But that wont work here...too dynamic of a system. The margin of error makes any extrapolation a guess at best and not even an educated guess.
I have the same set of questions you do. I accept that those questions are a part of us now. I accept that they are valid questions and have faith that the time to answer them will present itself and that I will recognize that time when it happens. Until then I try not to struggle to answer them. (that struggle can be intense when I am triggering and am angry...then I want to answer all of them NOW!) I regret I have these questions, but accept them.
I think if a WS was honestly and deeply remorseful right at the beginning...there would be no beginning to adultery....know what I mean?
So I might just suggest refraining from assigning any sort of percentage to remorsefulness here.
I admit though...it would be comforting to see over the top remorsefulness from my wife. My wife knows this. But if there is only one thing I have learned through this tough trial it is I really do want the truth over any sort of lie or deception. And since my wife is not faking remorse at the level I selfishly would like to witness I know she loves me enough to be honest...and that carries a lot of weight with me.
God be with us all.
[This message edited by blakesteele at 9:36 PM, July 21st (Sunday)]
I do still often ask myself if I am doing the right thing staying but I stay for now for a variety of reasons of which some are not particularly nice.
WH emotional bank account has a balance of 2cents in it so really its a lonely marriage and I do deserve more.
Yes. "If you were sorry, you wouldn't have done it."
Today I am coming from a place where my WS is extremely remorseful, addled with guilt and realizing with each passing minute the amount of devastation he's caused. I think he feels like he can never make it up to me, although he's willing to try. I am so much further along in the grief process than he is, because there was at least a month a him going back and forth (which is the worst, of course). Now that fight is over I have stopped to ask myself, what do I really want. I simplify it this way: You're at the park and your dog gets off the leash and starts running across the field toward the street. Of course your first instinct is to run after the dog, jump hedges, skirt the rocks, leap over the ravine, dodge the bee hive...finally you catch the dog and he's in your arms! Then you get home, relieved that the ordeal is over and the dog shits on the white carpet and pukes on your leather couch. Once you've finally won the chase and brought home the prize you remember...damn,this dog chews my shoes, farts all night, eats cat poop out of the litter box, won't stay in the damn yard for anything. Ok, yeah the dog is cute, it's comforting to not be alone at night and the dog loves to go on rides in the car. The kids love the dog. I love the dog. But is this working? Or should I have let the dog run when it had the chance? *sigh*
My main way around it was to hold off from committing myself to R until my W had acted consistently to R for 90 days. During those 90 days, every issue was 'stay (see if we could work it out) or go' for me. When I committed to R, every issue was 'work it out', although I knew we could split if we couldn't work it out.
In the early days (up to 9-10 months?), we addressed every issue that came up, because I wanted to test my W's commitment to resolving issues. we put some issues aside, mainly at her request, but she always committed to getting to them eventually.
In other words, I allayed my fears by asking for what I wanted and by pushing my W to work on stuff I wanted her to work on. Sometimes she refused because she felt she needed to work on other things first, but since I was seeing pretty constant (but slow) improvement, that was OK. Also, her IC/our MC usually sides with my W WRT when she works on what issue.
My W's IC is our MC, and she's terrific, so we've both felt supported by her, even as she confronts us. She's very tough on my W, so when our C backs up my W, I can accept it. Our C has been critical to our progress - we know she'll help when we reach an impasse, so impasses are just bumps in the road. Without our C, we might still be stuck at our first impasse from 2.6 years ago....
So, there's that dynamic as well.
