SurvivingInfidelity.com^®

hikingout said "H and I chose to stick it out in the really unhappy parts from that, a I suspect you did the same. That goes on for years before it’s right if we are lucky enough to get there."

No doubt it takes much time and effort to get things back on track in most cases. It would be hard to trust a quick and easy reconciliation. I hope it is proving to be worth the effort for you and your husband. My mother always said, a good marriage always requires hard work.

hikingout - did your mother (or father) ever tell you that marriage requires hard work?

[This message edited by Hephaestus2 at 3:54 AM, June 3rd (Wednesday)]

My point wasn’t that I didn’t understand the hard work, my point on the last post is all of us waywards who are parents spent some time in a marriage that was not the example for. Children. We were in the verge of divorce that entries first year.

My mom told me marriage was work. I have already said that h and I did that hard work for years. We got through business devastation in the beginning, deaths of parents, hard pregnancies, coparenting and raising his two from a previous marriage, house moves, etc. when we were in a valley I would try and remember that marriage worked best remembering that. It’s about being the right kind of partner. I would put in effort and we would eventually get back to the middle again.

My post isn’t really about that exactly...it’s kind of more about reevaluating what love is and means and what’s most important after having gone through personal crisis as well as a devastating marital one. It’s more about the intentional work that goes into that rebuilding. And honestly three years later after all the work done so far it’s really hard to understand how flippant I was about everything, how easy I was going to let our life that we built together and all the things that Have ever been good just go. Like it was nothing. Trash.

But my last response to you was more about how it’s difficult for one ws who did throw it all away, who didn’t consider or yield to the effects it would have in our children, judge someone who is intentionally trying to hold what is needed for her children together. One with special needs. Or what it is she might be exposing them to. I think as we as we heal and we gain compassion for ourselves we really begin to have compassion for other who aren’t walking a line that might be widely considered ideal. My point with what you highlighted was to say we have all been in that place with our spouses and kids and stayed through it so it’s difficult to see throwing stones.

But I do understand that you are pointing out that isn’t ideal for the children or even for darkness or her husband. I think she probably knows that but weighs it against an alternative that ends up being worse.

To answer your question, yes, I think my H and I consider ourselves reconciled. But I continue to analyze and examine my views in love and where my thought processes might be askew. I use this site for that to help keep me in check.

[This message edited by hikingout at 8:34 AM, June 3rd (Wednesday)]

HO

Back to your original post

"to be vigilant of my thoughts and what can lead me astray. Maybe someone else can wrap a bow around it"

and now your last post

"But I continue to analyze and examine my views in love and where my thought processes might be askew"

You are starting to wrap a bow.

For myself anyway, leading up to my A I wasn't communicating or working on my M, or analyzing anything, or even putting my wife or family ahead of my own misguided and depressed feelings. Now years later I find that my wife and I communicate, we don't rugsweep issues, and I too am aware of my behaviours and remind myself to tend to my relationship with my wife.

I haven't quite nailed what I was trying to say but I see and agree with you on this.

Yes nailing it all down to express some of the feelings behind it is very difficult.. the whole experience is multifaceted and life changing. You can’t go through something like this and walk away the same person unless there is some barrier such as mental disorders. Even if it ends in divorce or limbo. It’s probably a lot of what you talk about -a deepening of remorse and that is always best counter balanced with deep appreciation and gratitude. It’s a lot to wrap a bow around.

H2,

Perhaps this shows my own FOO bias, but there is a part of me that feels that there is such a thing as being TOO open with one’s children. I stated in one of my first replies on this thread that they’re only 2 and 4, but I don’t think that when they’re 6 and 8 or 9 and 11 I’ll necessarily be any more eager to get into nitty-gritty details with them about my personal relationship with their father or my uncensored feeling about him. I don’t look at that as “deception”; I look at it as private. Even when they are adults, although I certainly plan to discuss relationships and marriage in general and to be wary of entering into them for the wrong reasons, I still don’t think it would be appropriate or necessary to starkly elucidate them on the fact that my marriage to their father was a poor choice on my part and one I regret. I can’t see any good that would come from such information being imparted.

But, as you say, it’s possible that years later, we will feel differently about each other.

[This message edited by Darkness Falls at 11:59 AM, June 3rd (Wednesday)]