Walking...
Anger is good, it is engaging your body and mind to find a better place. Keep feeding on it for now...you have so many big issues you need to deal with.
I can tell you a bit about what R looks and feels like but I am sure it is different in every single case. I have decided, what makes my situation different from so many on here is that I found out about the A when it was in its declining stages....it was almost dead as a matter of fact. My husband had come to his own conclusions about how disgusting his behavior had been, he knew he was the one who screwed up royally, the shame he experienced when he learned that what he thought were the excuses for his A were merely the things not working right in our marriage which nearly killed him. He wanted to kill himself, and this was even before I confronted him. So I am dealing with a spouse who truly knows what he did was wrong on so many levels. That is such a harder place to get to when the A is intercepted when it is in full swing.
R starts when both of you are able to identify what was not working in your relationship before the A. Both I and my husband had issues and we both owned up to our share of the pie. We both had to identify what, in our earlier lives, created who we were individually (this was done through IC) and then we have worked very hard on fixing how we do things, how we speak to each other, our listening skills and anything else that has been a barrier between us (this was done in MC).
As for knowing if my husband is really invested in this well I can honestly see the shame and pain in his eyes and he is on board with any and every request I have that will lesson my PTSD symptoms. He is coming up with his own ideas on how we can make things better and he has voiced in words his feelings about what has happened, how it has affected me and what he intends to do to fix the situation. He has sent a letter (read and approved by me) through registered mail to the OW stating in very specific words that IT (the A) is over and to not contact him again. All this I will add was done on his own accord. He has worked so very hard in therapy and I have to say I am proud of what we have been able to accomplish.
For me, the real R started when the issues turned from being about the A to how we were going to get to total R. I even, in some distorted way feel that, without the A we would never have gotten to the type of marriage we are building now....open, honest, loving, sexual with healthy and respectful communication skills. I no longer feel like a victim and I feel we are both equally part of the solution.
T
