SurvivingInfidelity.com^®

I am glad to check in and see contributions being made to this post. Again, I am all in favour of reading why something IS NOT working too. Wert wrote something in that thread - making room for your brain for this to exist and I thought, yes! this is what I have done. Continue to do.

We have talked more in the last 18 months than we did in the 23 years before this I think!

I know, eh Itsaclimb? Amazing to think how long we were NOT doing something.

*We are both beginning to understand our weaknesses when times are tough or we talk about difficult things and we are working on them as well as being more understanding towards one another.

Yes. The understanding is key here gfrich. My H often does not know how to respond to a third party when caught off guard. It has been cause to many an argument bc he brings it to me and I say, "you said what?!". He just said to me yesterday, "I honestly don't know what to do in this sitch. What should I do?" I realized that he truly didn't know....and that my understanding that he didn't know was key to whether the talk got worse or better.

The big one for me has to be that neither of us have "hardened hearts". We both still have a soft, tender, whatever heart toward the other. The only starting point that will make things work.

I agree, justgreatnews.

Can love alone make R work? I was going to answer that our R is working (on most days) because we truly still love each other. But I think it takes more than just love for each other. A lot more:

We both want R

WH answers all of my questions

WH is sorry & shows remorse

We communicate a lot more now than we ever did

We fight for R everyday

We love each other!

Somedays, I'm not sure that R is working. I try to keep my paranoia down to a minimum but I still have triggers.

Thank you for hope. We are early in our journey and I am very up and down about it. Thank you for hope. It helps so much to read these positives.

Our R is working because I had the strength to survive the year+ that it took her to truly own her actions and move from saying most of the right things to actually truly feeling remorse.

She did IC, but she was doing IC before the A. Being honest in IC helps it to actually be useful and she finally got there.

We did MC. I can remember the drive home after one session when I stopped being nice and told her she wasn't doing enough of the work to fix things.

To me, R works when both parties are truly committed to the healing that is needed and then truly committed to building or rebuilding a strong marriage.

But, BS and WS can be on entirely different schedules for getting to that truly committed phase and whichever one is committed first has to be strong enough to do all the rowing until the other party mans an oar. If you're the BS, that sure isn't fair, but there isn't much of this that is fair for the BS.

[This message edited by WarpSpeed at 2:31 PM, March 1st (Saturday)]

BS and WS can be on entirely different schedules for getting to that truly committed phase and whichever one is committed first has to be strong enough to do all the rowing until the other party mans an oar.

We were just talking about this last night. I carried her when she couldn't and she carried me when I couldn't.

We are still trying to figure this R thing out, but I wanted to thank you for starting this thread. It's great to learn from all of you who are succeeding on this difficult journey..

Because my WH wanted it more than I.

I read this thread last night then again tonight and just realized that this ^^^^ is true for me, too. He jumped into doing everything possible to prove his remorse and his commitment to me right away. I was immediately willing to R but knew that I could and would leave if needed.

Some of the things he did/does:

No TT

Answered all questions even if they made him uncomfortable

Read about how to help me heal

Always accepts responsibility for his actions

We both make more time for each other.

This is a tough road and I am thankful to have SI and all of you to help me along.

One word. Communication.

We both read the same books and talked about what we were learning. We identified our own, and each others', communication strengths and weaknesses. We talked, for hours, and we often disagreed. It hasn't been easy, at times it's been very tumultuous, and we're still figuring it out. But our communication is so much better than it was on DDay.