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I think it's a very basic question, but I'm honestly a little stumped by it. I remember a comment from a member (can't remember name, so please forgive me) where she said she didn't want her WH doing nice things for her out of fear he'd confuse that with "doing the work" of reconciliation and infidelity recovery. I agree, as I had said that I told WW to stop making my meals and packing my lunch and doing nice things for me because it made things harder. I didn't see the connection with a WS potentially seeing those things as the work until the other member said it, but it was a very astute insight.

So in your eyes, what is the work? I guess all I want is "don't cheat on me". So, it's easy for me to miss the steps in proving that and what would be positive signs towards that. Maybe if I could see them I'd either be reassured as to WWs commitment or lack thereof. Obviously after 3 DDays not enough work has been done because, again, all I really want is "don't cheat on me" (seems reasonable to me).

Is it therapy? Location sharing on devices? Phone and social media transparency? Building micro trusts as life happens and your honest? Strict committment to a "no mind altering substances" policy? NA meetings? I mean I have ideas I guess of what a commitment looks like and doesn't, but obviously I'm pretty bad at this game to be spinning wheels and stupid enough to be deceived as many times as I have. So what were some signs or reassurances that WS was doing the work to you? What were violations of that that told you they were not doing the work?

Love and respect to you all.

For me, it means that the WS can no longer rationalize being selfish. I never expected my fWH to put me first, but I did expect him to never put himself first again. I am an equal stakes-holder in every decision, and after what he put me through, I expect nothing less than equal consideration.

Cheating is about character. I really believe that. He needed to show me that he had adjusted his values and boundaries in such a way as to make them a priority. Where before, there was just emotional justifications, after there had to be an unassailable framework of belief.

For me it involves total transparency. Not just location sharing and open access to devices, but telling me in advance what he’s planning to do and not being defensive if I need to ask questions about what he’s doing.

It’s about being open about everything. The past, present and future.

Being understanding about my triggers and traumas

Being more openly loving. My FWH had always disliked holding hands in public. It’s something I like, and since DDay has made me feel safer. So he has to be willing to do that. He also used to be rubbish at hugging and kissing me, so I made it plain that I expected those things.

And, obviously, NC with AP and other women (unless there was a good reason for contact with a woman and I knew about it)

Those are all that spring to mind. But really a lot is about attitude. He could do all the above but with a bad attitude, which would not be in the spirit of R.

If you think your WS needs NA meetings then that is a reasonable requirement. Counselling is also reasonable, and a lot of people require that. I didn’t as we had a traumatic experience with a MC, but I could see that FWH was doing the work on himself so it didn’t matter.

I imagine people’s "doing the work" is somewhat specific to their circumstances. For me, I am hoping to see my husband address the things that led him down the slippery slope

People pleasing: no longer putting everyone (his parents, his patients, his colleagues) ahead of me and the children. Everyone thinks he is "wonderful" but in the past that would always be at the expense of his nuclear family. There is a lot of progress in this area, but a typical thing would be this week when he missed my birthday dinner because he chose to see patients at night, and even when it turned out he was done earlier and could have come about 20minutes late he said he needed to go home and dictate his cases. I could have pushed it and he would have come but I just didn’t really care. Even if he had agreed to come to dinner and someone called and tried to get in to see him I can say with almost 100% certainty he would squeeze them in, even if it made him miss half the dinner. This is why he is so wonderful

Bringing up the A. We had a great heart to heart last night in which he said he would definitely ask every night how I was doing with things related to the A. I said "really, you would do that, that’s so nice…" and he said "of course". Tonight…didn’t ask. That would have been doing the work. Instead he cleared both our trays after we ordered take out and was generally kind, just didn’t follow through on the thing I asked for.

Total transparency: he has been great about this. Access to everything. Seems to enjoy having me read his texts, likes to talk about what people are saying about work or whatever. It’s like I am in the gossip network with him and in some ways that’s good. It’s a little weird probably to others, but we have continued it. The thing he and AP talked about the most was the politics at work. He’s a little self-centered I guess and is essentially obsessed with his work, so in some ways its good that I’m in the loop. Tonight one of the female partners texted him about work, but it was unnecessary to send a text at 6pm on a Friday night. I said, would you mind waiting 24 hours to reply so she doesn’t think you want to chat on weekends. He said he wasn’t planning to reply at all. So I was kind of pleased with that. He has not received a "social" text in about 6 months from any female. In the 7 years since the A there are only a couple per year and they are discussed. He knows I don’t want him to ever encourage stuff like that. The one who texted tonight is the only partner who is a female, so in some ways I feel like it is unfair to completely shut her out when he readily texts with all the male partners. I just expect him to keep much firmer boundaries with her.

Not being defensive with questioning. He is not the best on this one. He is working on it and is planning to do IC to address this and his family issues (dad is narcissist). I have been putting off having him go into IC because I am a little nervous about it. But it will happen soon. Instead we are doing MC for the last 6 months and it has really helped. It has been a "safe space" to discuss the A and all of the related pain.

Along the same lines as other posters, I think it is about putting aside selfishness, and caring about your partner.

It’s a tricky balance because some Waywards got into that situation by not focusing on themselves enough, nursing resentments, communicating poorly and acting out.

I think the work involves becoming honest. Focusing on yourself as a person with integrity, and being seen just for what you are. That must then involve owning your actions and being more balanced, neither grandiose nor reactive.

Daddy Dom speaks of getting in the habit of truth telling, even in small things, with all people. Sometimes it’s in very small things and people raise an eyebrow. Say you find yourself late to work and give an excuse the bus was late. You then go back and say, actually the bus was on time but I forgot my gym bag. Let honesty become your habitual response, so it feels weird to even tell a white lie.

In terms of caring for the spouse’s feeling, I recall an episode, I think it may have been in one of Walloped’s threads, where they were going to a family event. The ‘do you like Pina colada’ song came on, she saw her husband trigger, and she screamed to turn the radio off. Then there was a later episode where instead of being deferential she spoke her mind and he said something like ‘It’s nice to meet you, I’m Walloped’, as they had reached a stage where enough individual and marital work had been done that there could be some genuine communication again, rather than all apologies and tip toeing.

I think somewhere between those markers is the process which we call ‘doing the work’.

(I may have mixed up anecdotes. I’m bad at that).

[This message edited by straightup at 3:51 AM, Saturday, February 25th]

Mine was simple, W would ask "what do I need to do?" I would say " I’m not sure, but I’ll know it when I see it"

[This message edited by Tanner at 5:17 AM, Saturday, February 25th]

For me in the first phase it meant he had to drop the defensiveness, go the extra mile to understand how his actions have been traumatising for me, show empathy and support my healing whilst also working hard in IC to understand why he did what he did.

As the "whys" emerged, the work he did shifted into showing awareness and change around each "item". Selfishness? Show that he now puts me and our kids first and we (our family unit) remain his main focus and priority. Entitlement? Show that he learns and actively practices gratitude for what he has, rather than focusing on what he hasn’t got (and may be entitled to). Conflict avoidant? Show that he has dropped the passive agressive behaviour and is comfortable to bring up difficult conversations. Lack of boundaries? Understand exactly when the affair ignited and no, that wasn’t the day they had intercourse. Seeking external validation? Understand why it is important to get external praise from people who don’t actually know you rather than your immediate family.

The work a WS has to do isn’t easy and it takes a long time. It requires a lot of introspective work and facing some really hard realities, accepting them and developing tools to deal with these.

Transparency, NC with the AP and location tracking are only minuscule actions the WS needs to take in the early stages to show they mean business but without the long term work these actions mean nothing.

[This message edited by Luna10 at 11:11 AM, Saturday, February 25th]

Something I wrote long ago:

Let's go back to basics:

I recommend thinking of R as 3 healings:

1) You heal you. Most BSes are inundated with immense amounts of grief, anger, fear, and/or shame on d-day. The largest part of your work is to process those feelings out of your body. A good IC can help you do this.

2) Your WS heals themmself. They need to change from cheater to good partner. I think that requires IC for the WS, but others disagree.

3) Together you build a new M.

This means you can recover from being betrayed without your WS; that is, you can survive this crisis and thrive without your WS, but you need your WS to R(econcile). You can heal yourself because you control yourself. You don't control your WS. I recommend making survive and thrive your primary goal and R your stretch goal.

Have you read the Healing Library here? If not, there's a lot of good stuff there. Click the link in the yellow box in the upper left of the SI pages.

I think there are a number of keys ingredients to the decision to R.

First, what do you want? Do you really want R? If not, don't lie to yourself. R is hard work, and wanting it makes it less difficult, but both D and R are moral responses to being betrayed.

If you want R, I recommend figuring out your requirements for R and seeing if your W will sign on. If they won't, perhaps they can come up with something else that will meet your requirements, but if you can't negotiate something truly acceptable to both of you, great - you can go directly to D. Otherwise, you can monitor them for 3-6 months and commit to R for yourself if they are (is?) consistent in meeting your requirements.

The requirements need to be observable and measurable. That way it's easy to monitor progress and make adjustments as you go along.

Common requirements include:

NC - no contact with ap; if ap initiates contact, report to BS and together decide how to respond

Transparency - BS has passwords to e-mail, voice-mail, phones, etc.; WS keeps BS informed of whereabouts, activities, and companions at virtually all times

Honesty - WS answers BS's questions when they're asked, although sometimes a break is necessary, sometimes an answer is best deferred to MC session, etc., no more lies.

IC for WS - to change the thoughts and feelings that supported the A, with signed release that enables C to talk with BS about WS's goals and progress (so the BS can make sure WS's IC isn't being lied to).

IC for BS - for support - and for resolving any internal issue that comes up

MC - to help communications between the partners, if one or both partners want MC

Some (Most?) people have individual requirements - my W had to arrange dates for us on a weekly basis and must initiate sex sometimes. What do you want from your W?

And R is a joint endeavor - if one of you hides objections to the other's requirements, you sabotage R. And you have to see your WS as a human being of worth equal to your own to make R work. You don't have to see your WS as a human being equal to you to recover, but you sure can't R, except with an equal. (This is what Wallop meant when he wrote 'Pleased to meet you', IMO.)

R is very rewarding when both partners want it an do the work. It seems to be hell on earth, though, unless both do that work. Being betrayed is bad enough - spare yourself the pain unless you want the reward and have a partner who will join you in the process.

So in your eyes, what is the work?

Do you know any recovering alcoholics? And if so, do they look like they are white-knuckling it, or do they seem very determined to change their prior way of living? To me, this is one of the closest comparisons that I can make to a cheater who no longer wants to be like they were. They want to be a better version of themselves.

You know what's funny(not really)? My wife was regularly attending AA after I caught her cheating. She was going to every meeting, talking openly about the sobriety, the book, and working the steps. And to her credit, she never relapsed with alcohol to this date(11+ years). But what she DID do in the early stages, was continue to cheat with AP, and I didn't catch that until later. I just plainly told her that she never really worked the steps. She may have followed them superficially, but that same exact message from AA applies across the board. Infidelity would not have occurred again, if she was taking her sobriety seriously.

She obviously sees this clearly today. She even recognized it back then, and admitted such.

Efforts=Results. That's what I consider 'doing the work'.

Bump by request

I will give an example of something that I feel has been a good action I've taken that has helped my MW/BW feel that I truly get it. From time to time, I get random WhatsApp and iMessages from what I presume are bots, but they are "women" and while we were eating lunch a few weeks back, I got what I thought was an email from a friend Mark who had served as our family photographer in the past and I realized only after clicking the link in "his" message that it was not from him and it was like a phishing link. Suddenly, over the next few days I started getting a lot more of these messages. Regardless, each time I receive one of these messages, I hand my phone over to my wife so she can see it and I ask her to report as junk, block and delete. I do it because I don't want there to be a secret, my messages are a total open book and there is nothing there to hide from her. I realize that this system that I've established may not work for everyone, but I also think it signals to my wife that she is my priority and there is not an "I" in this, that it is a "we" thing and that we do the work to establish the proper windows and walls in our relationship.