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I had a talk with my husband last night. He asked me, what made me want to reconcile?

And you know, this made me really think. At first when my husband found out about my A, I wanted to give up. I wanted to say that I was done. I thought he would be in a much better state if he wasn't with me and a lot happier if I wasn't involved in his life anymore.

On April 19th when my husband found those haunting texts between my AP and I, I wanted to give up. I just wanted to hide in a corner and be by myself. But as the day went on and we talked more and more. Things started looking up a tiny bit. That night was horrible, my husband spend pretty much all night waking me up every 2 minutes to ask me questions about my text messages, what they meant, stuff like that.

The next day, I made the choice to send my AP 2 text messages. For the life of me, I cannot remember what they said either. Second worst mistake ever. My husband told me that if I ever had any contact with my AP that that was it, we were done. But for some reason I didn't listen. I sent the messages anyway.

But from that day on is when I started looking more into myself and wanting to continue in our relationship. Honestly though, it took me a while to be fully committed.

I knew that I wanted to be a better person not only for my husband and (at the time) daughter, but for myself as well. I wanted to become a healthy person. And I am. I still have a long way to go and I don't think I will ever be done working on myself.

I am proud of the person I have become though. I know that I am only going to get better and be better.

For me, it's been something of a clarion's call: the nuclear blast shook something out of me that was holding me down and holding me back.

Since then, I've been re-tooled, refined, and re-purposed. If 5-year-old me knew that I had been within inches of giving up a wonderful family and child, he would have kicked me as hard as he could.

Part of it is also proving to myself that I can, in fact, rise to the occasion and not run away or back down from conflict. I've surprised myself more than once on this journey by having the strength to continue when I didn't think I could.

I'm demonstrating willpower, responsibility, dedication, and courage in the face of adversity. And I think it's safe to say that prior to this, I have never truly been proud of my accomplishments and achievements. But of completely destroying and re-forming who I am? I am pleased, though I wish the cost had not been so high, damage so widespread.

I wanted to continue because even though I was stupid enough to cheat on him my heart still belonged to my BH. It is hard to explain. I had convinced myself that he no longer loved me. But seeing him tormented over what I did, I realized I had made a huge mistake.

During and before I was in the "fog" he was my enemy, out of the fog he was actually just an imperfect person who didn't know how much his actions had hurt me over the years, but didn't deserve to be cheated on.

I wanted to continue because I love my wife and family. It's as simple as that. I want BW in my life, I want our children to be raised by US, not individually with the help of step-parents. I never want the kids to miss either one of us while with the other. Because infidelity aside, any and all pre-A issues can be worked out. Because I want to prove to BW that I can be the man she THOUGHT I was. Having an A doesn't exactly exude these beliefs; I am aware of the hypocrisy in that. Nevertheless, I can envision a future without my BW, but it is not the future I want.

I want to continue because I honestly and truly love my wife as well. There have been times (a lot as I have learned through this process) that I did not love my wife like I pledged on our wedding day and did not keep my promise to love, honor, and cherish her above all else. My actions were incredibly selfish and foolish! She did not deserve any of what she's been through or is going through. The more I look back over my actions, the more self loathing I feel because I had (what I would call) my dream come true happily ever after and I threw it away. I want to continue to prove to my wife that she truly is worth it to me. I want to continue because she is the person I think about, dream about, and fantasize about. I made a mistake and stopped doing those things before. I know I can be the husband she deserves, the father my kids deserve, and man I know I can and should be. To me, this is hitting rock bottom and now I have to start rebuilding in the hopes I can build something bigger and better and never risk losing it EVER again. We're not in R yet, but I'm fighting every day to get there.

Well, my affair was never about not loving her. It had a lot more to do with using the other person to satisfy a need to have someone else look at me in a larger than life way.

My wife, hell, she's amazing. Extremely smart, lovely, we do all of the same nerdy things together and we challenge each other in ways that make us grow. She gets me better than anyone else.
I have had the privilege of loving some very good women over the years but I can say without doubt that she is the love of my life.
Looking back at my affair, I'm seriously embarrassed. If you check beyond the surface, my AP didn't compare to my wife at all. I got nothing good out if it and did unbelievable harm. Even trudging through the wasteland that I have made of our lives, I can see the potential that lies in building a new marriage and I want it. I really, really do.

[This message edited by NoGoodUsername at 8:39 PM, August 29th (Thursday)]

My BW is my soulmate.

JD

P.S. Yes, I cheated on my soulmate. Mind boggling...

For me it comes down to: what is my future self's best chance at love and happiness in 10, 20, 30 years? Easy. Being with my H, holding hands while we watch DC graduate college, walk down the aisle at their weddings, meet our grandchildren for the first time.

That's the prize my eye is on. And what I lost sight of for awhile.