My question is do any of you have stories about successful reconciliation even when it took a while for the WH to get clear-headed? It seems like many of the posts I read are about a WS who is immediately remorseful and rededicates him/herself to the BS...or the posts are about a WS who is hopelessly lost and is on the way to divorce.
There HAS to be a middle ground, or at least I'm hoping there is. Any of you had a WS that took a while to get his/her head clear, and from there you reconciled? I could really use those stories to keep my spirits up!
I know most would say to leave in my situation, but I was very mentally unstable and suicidal at the time. We are currently in R, but I have an exit plan ready should I need to implement it.
No longer together
"There are times when our reality is nothing but pain, and to escape that pain the mind must leave reality behind." Patrick Rothfuss
When he finally ended a he moved back home. Not a good decision on my part, he was not ready. I had to watch him grieving over his lost fantasy of a "perfect life".
It has only been in about the last two weeks that he seems to be looking inward at himself. Just beginning to take responsibility for the choices he made and the damage he caused.
He has been in IC since January and we have been in MC since March. I have been in IC since November.
I still don't know how this will turn out.
It's crazy but he seems more confident about wanting and believing this will work than me.
I am still on the fence, waiting to feel safe, to trust, to see the effort on his part, to see the actions.
I do know that I will be ok either way. He left and I survived, it hurt but I would have made a new life.
He came back, I am still surviving, I still hurt, trying to create a new life.
This is crazy.
I would now like to be known as Can!
dday October 21,2012 dday December 20, 2013 wh deleted I attempted R, he was a lie
Divorced!
At 8 weeks he is not totally indifferent yet, but he has a grasp of the reality of the situation. Has your H read "Not Just Friends"? Reading that and going to MC helped immensely. After the Affair is good as well. I don't know how people defog without being somewhat proactive - affairs are a very strong "drug."
Some WS change their mind and their feelings die down or come to a natural end with the OP, just as in any other relationship, often does, even if that relationship did not start out as an A. But that is not the same as coming out of some supposed fog IMO. It is the natural progression of things, depending on many factors including the people involved. Sometimes they get tired of the OP for many reasons, and see virtue in trying to work out the M if the BS is still willing to give them that chance.
As for me, whether the "fog" is real or not, I would not knowingly tolerate it for even one day.
My H appeared to be immediately and extremeley remorseful after D-day. He asked me for another chance. I was not going to give him one, but it was early December and I thought I could just wait until after the new year started because I was mostly curious to "see what he would do." I expected him to fail and expected to D in 2007. But he surpassed my expectations by far. We R'ed and are closer than ever, now almost 7 years later.
The crappy thing is, I'm still really bitter about how long he led me on and played games while he bounced back and forth between the OW and me. It's hard to let that bitterness go.
On the fence... do I stay or do
My H was a classic case when we separated. He was having a 3 month EA with a coworker 1600 miles away when he left. I did all of the classic BS things too. I cried, I did everything but beg. But she was his soul mate and he had to try to make it work. He now says that his pride wouldn't let him admit that he had made a mistake. They did go PA for one week in July when he was sent to her city for work.
After 6 months, I told him that I was ready to divorce. I did not know that he had already broken up with her and had already started cutting out all of the bad influences he had accumulated over the previous 6 years. When he saw that I was just done, he said "What have I done?" and started crying.
After that we became better co-parents. Eventually, we started flirting again. Then dating and sex. He spent Christmas and New Year's in our bed with me. Then he started spending every weekend. He finally moved home in February after a 10 month separation.
Our reconciliation has had ups and downs. I have discovered more info about what he was doing during those last 6 years, including 2 more OW. But I have not found ANYTHING new - since we started dating again.
We are both a little different now. He doesn't take me or his family for granted anymore. I still don't trust 100% but I'm getting there. We are best friends again - like we were the first 10 years. Our family is managing to heal and move forward.
I hope everything works out for you. Just keep in mind that you have to take care of you first. You can't make him wake up. That's all on him.
((hugs))
How long has your H had NC with OW? I see in your profile that he broke it at least once.
Contact with the AP can rev up the faulty thinking. It's like a bad bad habit. My WH was jolted into clear thinking at d-day. However, I am sure that if he had secretly made contact,, OW would have hoovered him right back in.
Now, he's had seven months of weekly IC, so he is very fog resistant. I would say NC and IC are crucial to maintaining healthy thinking.
Basically, the fog doesn't lift on its own. The emotions of an active affair and the weaknesses of the WS create the fog. It's not going away until those two things change.
