She is doing/has said/committed to anything and everything one could hope for. Basically verbatim from the things explained on this website. (in fact, its almost like she is reading them to me)
All I see in front of me is pain and zero hope.
The notion of forgiving her and allowing myself to be vulnerable again seems ridiculous.
How does an idea of forgiveness go from seemingly impossible to actually becoming a possibility?
Because today, right now, you are not deciding to forgive. You are deciding, if you so choose, to stay one day at a time.
You don't make promises. You say that you do not know what you will do. That you can commit to being here for today. And you take it hour by hour, day by day.
She has a lot of work to do. 10 days NC is not that much. She cannot expect much.
Watch her actions, not her words.
Set up ground rules. Know what you will tolerate and what you will not. Give up on trying to control the outcome. Start by looking after you.
When we are no longer able to change a situation, we are challenged to change ourselves. ~Viktor Frankl
"When you are happy, you can forgive a great deal."
she has started therapy and has a full psych eval scheduled for next week. said she is willing and ready to do MC anytime i am ready for it.
her actions these last two weeks have been those i wished for over the last two years.
i look at the future ahead and all i see is a smoldering pile of rubble with no end in sight.
i look at the future with potentially new people and i see a grassy green sunny path leading off into the distance.
considering the potential future with WW (is that right? wayward wife?) only makes me consider the past again which is nothing but pain.
i honestly can not even fathom a scenario in which i say to her, its ok, i forgive you, and i'm willing to open myself up emotionally again to you.
i gave her an ultimatum to either end her A or move out and she picked moved out (about ten days ago). after two months of struggling with all of this i was content with my decision and resolve. i told my parents, my friends - ITS OVER.
and then once she was faced with the reality of being away from her daughter, she recanted and now has done the 180 with full remorse.
and i've accepted her staying in the home only for now to give her time to get therapy and psychiatry started, because we both are concerned she may be untreated BPD.
but she is asking me to reconsider and to think about a future together with her and I can't even fathom it.
how the hell do you decide that it was OK or that you're willing to accept?! i can't even imagine that. seems like i owe it to myself to not stand for that and to protect myself from her...forever.
It seems like you put in two good years of trying. She not so much. You seemed to have made a solid decision to move on… and now she wants back.
It's ok if you don't. Really it is. ((Hugs))
Married 4 years. Dating 8. Living together 7.
If a man took his time on earth to prove be for he died what on man's life could be worth I wonder what would happen to the world
- Harry Chapin
part of her detaching from me was destroying everything I thought we had that was good.
and now she wants it all back.
just after i had finally accepted it was over.
for two months i begged her, please end A and save the relationship. and for two months she said no. and then when i finally showed resolve to stand up for what i need, she wants back in.
i have no idea what to do
if your dday is a few months ago, then you shouldn't make a decision right now. Reread my first post. At 3 months out you would feel hopeless. That would be normal. Her actions from here on out is what gives you the strength to choose to stay one more day.
I got confused because you wrote that her behavior is more than you could have hoped for for two years. My second post I was assuming you had been in R for two years.
If you are truly a few months out, you wait. The rule of thumb around here is no major decisions for the first 6 -12 months after R begins.
If she was still in the A and foggy as they like to say, that could have been why she awful and destroyed your memories.
Likewise, the OM could have dumped her and she is scrambling. There is no way to know except for time. Or you can choose that you are done. And some people just know.
Since you originally wanted to R, I might take a wait and see approach for now. No promises.
[This message edited by brokensmile322 at 11:11 AM, March 20th (Thursday)]
We are almost 7 years out....for me
It will never be OK that my husband cheated and getting to acceptance is not accepting that it was ok, it is accepting that it happened. Understanding where your truth is and allowing yourself to take a leap of faith and try to work through it and make things better.
It doesn't happen overnight. It's a process. We didn't wake up the day after dday with aha moments. It took time. We both had choices to make, we both had to figure out if we loved each other enough and had the desire to change the marriage and ourselves.
We BOTH had to be all in. I had hope, tiny pieces of hope I kept in my back pocket. I watched, I waited for the other shoe to drop.
But he stood up and he started to do the work and heavy lifting. He removed doubts when I had questions, he was transparent, honest, open and vulnerable.
After about 5 months we both decided to R.
I hadn't forgiven, accepted and damn sure never said it was ok. But I decided to jump in and heal myself. I slowly opened up and we got things back we had lost little by little. Bits and pieces of us came back stronger and better.
He wasn't the only one that had to change. I had to look inside me, be honest, change what I had inside that was broken.
It seemed like it took forever. When it does you grab hold of that hope in your pocket and dig in and work harder.
The best case, IMO are 2 healthy people that make a decision about their future based on truth and open communication. One person cannot make the marriage alone.
Do the healing, give yourself time to find out where your heart is and where your wife's true intentions lie. Once the 2 of you have had time to process and heal a bit you can make a decision based on your truth.
If you do forgive it sneaks up on you, at least it did me. It wasn't a huge event....it just became a natural progression on our journey.
Know whatever road you take you will be ok.
Just be good to yourself.
[This message edited by karmahappens at 3:17 PM, March 20th (Thursday)]
