Ultimately TT was the hardest part. Her affair was extreme, as affairs go. Difficult as it was I knew I could accept all that because I knew she was a good person who was very broken and had followed a very self centered track looking for the easy fix to her problems.
But that she continued to minimize and TT almost broke me.
Accept that she fucked up badly? Unequivocally yes. I've made some big mistakes too. But tell me she wants to make it right while still feeding me bullshit? Brutal. I wondered so often whether it was just time to pack my bag and be gone.
In the end I think most of the cold, hard truth came out but that still left a good bit of room for her to fill in the story, which she hasn't done. I'm not comfortable with that and tend to go back & forth in my head about how much it matters. But getting to the core of everything she did do eventually. She also took full responsibility for her actions and since dday has turned herself around in many profound ways. Getting sober was the key.
With the understanding that her thinking was broken & very selfish, I feel it would've been unwise for me to expect her to begin opening up about everything honestly from the gitgo. It took a long time for her to get where she was, so it was going to take a little time to get back.
The important thing was that I needed to see genuine progress. I did, and 3.5 years after dday we're still together. It will never be the same, nor should it. But I can see the marriage working for the rest of the journey now.
Thanks for letting me put it out there.