So this morning I received an email from one of many of the affair blog/help sites I frequent run by a couple named Doug and Linda who went through the nightmare of an affair. I'm sure at least a few of you are familiar with them. I noticed at least one member here who has many comments at the bottom of many of their articles.
This one was about the importance of a WS taking initiative. All too often it's the BS who is doing all of the work. The BS is the one looking up articles, reading the books, participating on the forums, looking up counselors, etc. The BS is often the one putting in all of the effort to salvage the relationship while the WS is pretty much just along for the ride and cruising on autopilot. A situation I'm sure many of us are familiar with.
I read this article to my wife (as I often do). It's not as if she isn't doing anything. Quite the opposite. She's been bending over backwards to try and do the right things, and quite successfully I might add. However, I do feel like I'm the one who's taking the most initiative in researching this stuff, participating on forums, etc., and passing what I learn onto her. She's then taking these lessons and applying them daily. My only real issue is that I felt like I was doing all of the work to dig into it.
Well, after I read that article to her, to my surprise, she goes to her purse and pulls out a couple of pages of handwritten notes! She's been using her break time at work to look up what she can be doing to fix things. Digging into her "why." She's been working it out with her counselor and reading articles on her own. She handed me 2 pages worth of what exactly she was feeling at the time of her affair. Her thought process, and why she gave herself permission to do what she did, while acknowledging that none of it justified her affair. There was that, and another page of notes with questions and statements she prepared for her counseling sessions.
I was kind of floored, and so pleasantly surprised. She's been doing a lot more behind the scenes than I realized. She actually took some initiative. I think most of you know about my wife's condition. She suffered a tbi when she was an infant that left her with epilepsy. She's not what anyone would consider handicapped, but it did leave her with some cognitive blind spots, and she's not usually one for deep introspection. In other words, her doing this required her to put more effort into it than most people.
Her notes contained a lot of what she was feeling at the time while acknowledging none of it was an excuse for having an affair. There were also many things about how much she loves me, never intended to leave me, and had always considered me her first choice, even when she was in the middle of her affair. She never once considered replacing me or leaving the marriage, and she really does despise AP now.
She had no idea how much it meant to me that she'd been doing these things. I asked her, "Why didn't you show or tell me about this before?" She said, "I was saving it for counseling and wanted to talk with her about it first."
I'm... actually proud of her. This deep introspection is something she would never have done before her affair. I'm really surprised she took it upon herself to do it. She wasn't necessarily going to share those specific notes with me. She was taking them to use in her counseling sessions to work through and later talk to me about it after her counselor helped her get it sorted. Those notes weren't meant for me, which tells me what she wrote is sincere and she really meant it.
If you're a WS and reading this, you taking initiative and putting in the work can absolutely mean the world to your BS. Don't sit on autopilot and let them do all of the work, and if you do the work, share it with your BS! They will appreciate it more than you probably realize. I now see her a little bit differently and in a more positive light. She's putting real and genuine effort into this, and the fact that it's more difficult for her than most just makes it that much more meaningful to me.
[This message edited by Pogre at 2:39 PM, Tuesday, February 10th]
