Smurphy - I could have written most of what you said myself (with exception to the lack of reading "How to Help your Spouse Heal" which my WH did read and the subsequently ignored after a short period of time). My only caveat is this - I know your situation and mine seem similar, but every situation is different, and therefore anything is possible. I say this as my situation turned out not like I had hoped, so I don't want you to read this and think this is the outcome or the answer, as I know neither.
This quote summed up my situation:
So basically, you will have a happy marriage so long as you only ever think well of her and have no issues whatsoever and never bring anything up ever again thankyouverymuch. Even without an affair in the picture, those don't strike me as either particularly realistic or healthy expectations.
For some context, my dday1 was 10/17 - so I am 2.5 years out from finding out about the initial A. Dday2 was 10/18 (1 full year of false R). Dday3 was 4/19. The announcement he was done was 10/19. (Also, in my world ddays are not TT - they are discovery of a A or in my case, an ongoing A, not additional information or lies about an A I already knew about). Basically, upon discovery I was told the A had/or would that moment, end - only to find out on subsequent ddays that the A had not ever ended or had ended and then resumed again.
In fact, my WH and I are not in R now - but "we tried" - the joke in that statement is I tried. He continued his A, got caught, and then wanted to "try again" only to repeat it yet again and subsequently ask to try again. Yes, we had false R twice over the course of 1.5 years (I won't go into the details except to say that I was not trying to R the last time - he claimed he was going to prove to me that he wanted to R - all lies for reasons I will never fully understand). As you might imagine, upon discovery that the A had continued/restarted, I was fuming mad, hurt, and betrayed all over again and the anger, hurt, betrayal was worse the second time. The third it was not, it was far easier, as I was less invested and honestly I kind of expected it.
All this ended up with him saying that he wanted to stop trying after (allegedly) stopping the A for 4-5 months, stating that I was not happy and he did not want to do this anymore. He then changed his mind yet again, and although we are not in R now, we are still living together until my job ends in 3 months so we still interact daily and are very involved in each others lives, and everything is "fine" so long as the A is not mentioned.
He creates his own reality, so I won't get into why all this is so bizarre except to say that I think he still believes that we will work out somehow and that the A is behind us. We are not together anymore and I am moving soon, but he still acts as if this is salvagable and that everything is back to normal, and I allow this because I simply want to keep the peace until it is time for me to leave. I am tired of the fights, and anger, and strangely I find that I see him for who he is now and wonder how exactly I missed it for 12 years.
It's funny as just a few days ago, after the A was brought up by me and it was discussed off and on a few times over the course of three days (it came up because of something his best friend's wife said to me that irritated me - so, as I no longer hold back my feelings, off and on meaning maybe a grand total of 2 hours it was brought up), he said something like this:
It doesn't matter all the nice things you do, and the wonderful person that you are, and how loving and caring you can be - I will not be able to withstand having to go back to that time in our lives. I simply will not be able to take it.
He then backtracked and said that of course he understood and wanted me to tell him if something had bothered me...but in the course of his backtracking I realized something - he cannot separate his past actions from the future responses. He still sees everything as an attack on what he did, instead of as an opportunity to see how those behaviors affected someone (in this case me) and to keep them in mind going forward, be it in a romantic relationship or otherwise. Even funnier is all this new behavior of his is different and better (and I credit his year + of therapy for it) because before he would have been angry, and defensive, and unwilling to talk about it. That is not the case anymore - and at least he is honest about what he can and can't deal with now...and that is progress. It's just not progress in the direction that would make me want to stick around. It's not enough. Not nearly enough. I have to come first in more than an ancillary or inconsequential way - my needs have to be met and even some of my wants, and they are not.
You are stuck in the same place I was:
In our last divorce discussion she acted stunned that I think our marriage is not on track. We do have pleasant day-to-day relations only because I do not bring up the pain I deal with (I have learned I will not get any sympathy anyway) and since I have taken a hands off approach and do not ram recovery down her throat, life is pleasant for her.
And while you can live like that for awhile, it takes its toll, because you feel slighted, and your feelings seem to be forgotten or unimportant in comparison to theirs. And you find yourself becoming resentful - or you may - it's likely - and miserable playing along with someone who only wants to play if the rules meet their expectations. They are still treating you as if you are lucky to be a part of their lives, when the reality is, they are lucky to be a part of yours (and super lucky you aren't a vindictive person who just blows up their world to the extent you can and walks away as it burns).
I'm so sorry you are in this limbo, and only you will be able to determine what you want/need to do and if living this way works for you well enough to stay, and if not, how you will extricate yourself from it. For me, and I realize I am in the minority, I think sticking around here for the last year, as initially miserable as it has been, has been good for me as I have cleared my head of any hope with him and instead see him for who he really is - and while I will admit that in some moments, when he does something that feels like it used to be, I still find him attractive, for the most part it has brought me clarity to see who he really is, and how damaged he is, and how much stronger I am than he is - and it helps me know I will be okay no matter what life brings me.
I hope you find that clarity too.
Edit - as an aside, I despise the armchair CoD diagnoses on this board. A lot of what is diagnosed as CoD is simply incorrect. I actually went to my own therapist (and a second one) and told her (and then him) I was CoD and there was little to dissuade me from that, because people here had told me that. So, I will not diagnose you as it is not important (and also the CoD diagnosis makes a BS think there is something wrong with them, which oftentimes facilitates the "I am somehow to blame for this mess" thoughts that mull around in your head late at night). You are not to "blame" and a desire to "fix" or "help" is not CoD - it's basic human decency at its core. When it gets dicey is where you are continually putting yourself and your needs further back in line from someone elses. When you have a relationship that is difficult to dissect as the relationship is partially yours - so wanting to help the relationship is wanting to help yourself/something you find valuable. CoD is a hell of a lot more than that - so please don't let the armchair diagnoses make you feel worse - they certainly did for me.
[This message edited by ThisIsSoLonely at 11:19 AM, July 13th (Monday)]
