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What advice do you reconcilers whose marriages have improved since DDay have about maintaining whatever good that has come as a result of the hard work done after DDay?

My H and I are about 3 months out from DDay. We are in MC and have been working so hard together to get the ship righted. I think we both, ironically, feel closer than we have in as long as we can remember. He has made significant changes in his way of functioning in our marriage and in our family. I have done a lot of growing as well, and made some big changes, too. We are both, for the first time, meeting each other's needs and putting each other first.

But, the real life of Fall is almost here, and I will be going back to work. H is hititng a period of high business travel and will be gone 2-3 weeks in Sept. Such tremendous stress. Plus, although in some ways this has been " the best of times", it has also obviously been the worst. I have all the pain, fear, anger, mind movies etc., to keep processing, and he has his own remorse and sadness to deal with.

Like I said, we are in MC, but if anyone has ideas on how to maintain the gains we've made and keep moving foraward, especially when trying to meet the demands of work and family, and travel, I'd appreciate it. I don't want the marriage to go back to sleep again.

Thanks!

[This message edited by bionicgal at 9:20 AM, August 22nd (Thursday)]

bionicgal - it really sounds like you are both going in the right direction, so this is wonderful.

Please remember, you are very early in all of this. You will find that you will get closer for sure, then HB (if you're experiencing it already) which is really great...then you will go through all kinds of other stages. I think in the healing library there are stages that you will go through so take a look.

Firstly, don't be afraid of the 'bad times'. Don't be afraid that if you guys don't have good times then he will stray...if you feel like that, then discuss it with your MC because you cannot live like that. You need to know that your WS is with you for the lauuuuuuuung haul, and will love you unconditionally whether you are feeling insecure and need him to skype while he is away, or just need to ask him the same question one more time.

So..that's the first thing.

Secondly...you cannot be with your WS 24/7. So, you need to talk about what it will look like while he is away...how often will he connect with you, will he skype to put things at ease.

Lastly, I do think that the BS tries to recreate this fantasy world for the WS....to show them - see life with me can be just as fun....but just like in an A it is not real...you cannot base a M on just good times. It is based on closeness.

HOw to keep the closeness is to fully communicate all the time...and I think that (to me) is what you need to focus on vs. remembering just the good times...

((bionicgal))

I think the important thing to remember is this....

Reconciliation is not linear.

There are peaks and valleys. It's two steps forward and one step back.

Your September will be challenging. You are getting back to real life. You have to communicate, communicate, communicate.

One of the things I realized is that when things started to go well and life was getting busy and back to normal, my WH would think that we were 'on our way'. He would mistake the good times we were having frequently as a sign that we were healed.

We weren't healed. We were/are healing. We were in a process. Once he was aware of that it got better...

Just be aware and communicate. Patience and love....on both sides.

Hugs!

Wow stillhurt, such a wise reply. Thank you very much, everything you said really resonated with me.

I am particularly worried about losing the sexual desire, as a person who was always low desire before.