I am not a person who is not very risk averse when it comes to decisions, especially business ones. In the last 4 years since my affair ended I learned more to live in the present, to not worry as much. When I catch myself I remind myself I will cross each bridge when I come to it. Take things day by day. We are just 6 months past my H's d-day, and I am still preparing to leave my job, sell our house, and travel full time with him. It's a risk for me to do that in the current status - this will certainly put more of a magnifying glass on our relationship at a time that might not be positive. But, then again what if it is? Things can always work out better than we imagine as well. I am sharing that because I want to preface some of my input with where I come from on some of it.
Thinking outside the box and doing things that make our life work better is something I enjoy and encourage to friends and family. Big risk can equal big rewards or big failures. We learn from both.
So, my initial response to reading your post last night was - why are you worried for your future self? Do you trust yourself to make a different decision if this decision isn't working well? Do you have confidence that you can maintain a great relationship with your wife/kid(s) not in their daily presence? We can never see the steps of our journey from it's starting point, so we have to have trust and confidence in ourselves that we can take it day by day and make the best decisions we can.
Except - the recovery of infidelity creates a lesser confidence. We have majorly failed in a way that has created a lot of pain/trauma, confusion, and grueling work. So, you begin looking at things with a lens of distrust even in yourself. We also create feelings of distrust/unreliability with our spouse. While I might be a bit of a gambler, it's harder to gamble a relationship that took everything to save.
I can't answer for you if you are making a mistake. Noone can. However, I can't tell what you are afraid of? So, here are some questions:
1. Your wife is onboard according to this post. Has she mentioned any concerns or pitfalls that creates reservations for her?
2. Do you just have the one child at home? Sounds like they might be in early highschool - do you have plans for how you will create time for that child?
3. How you can ease your wife's plate? Not being in the household puts more parenting on her, more chores, and it sounds like she would be going from a stay at home mom to also a career woman.
4. What is she giving up to move to be with you? What is she gaining? I know that's further down the road, I understand not wanting to uproot your kid(s). Is all her family and support where you currently live? So in essence are you asking her to live like a single working parent for the next few years only to uproot her from a fledgling career and her entire support system?
5. Does she still trigger over your affair? Do you see this being a trigger for just you or for her or both?
If these are things you haven't planned for, slow down a bit. The reason I say this is my biggest weakness in trusting myself moving forward isn't cheating. It's that I don't go back to sleepwalking through my life and using avoidance to cope. The things that led to my overall collapse as a human being did not come from choosing wrong at a fork in the road - it was the mismanagement of my daily life until I was miserable and resentful and lonely.
So, while I am not risk averse, I do think what you are talking about requires ongoing and deep communication, a lot of extra effort on your end so your wife (or child) doesn't feel abandoned. It's not a big risk if you manage it properly, and that's just going to take planning, continuous evaluation and modification. This is not a situation that you will be able to leave on autopilot.
With all that being said - I do understand the concerns surrounding your triggers. H and I find ourselves going into some territories that would have been similar circumstances to what was happening the year before my affair. There are times when I do just get that flash of terrified. I simply remind myself that I am not the same person going into those circumstances now. The blinders are off.
Last life observation - so my husband traveled for years with his job when our kids were young. It was purely a financial decision that we made together. Be aware that there becomes a dynamic when you are trying to cram a marriage into just the weekends. It can be good or bad, or a mix of both. Have you ever heard of a "disney dad?" that was a term coined usually for a divorced parent that has their kids so little that they try and cram as much fun and positivity into all the time they have with their kids. Certainly I watched that dynamic with my husband. Same thing happens in marriage. You don't see each other and you look forward to it (that's the good part) but sometimes you put off hard conversations so you can have a fun/sex fest to keep that happy vibe. Don't become a disney husband or dad, stay in the trenches of the partnership, the work, etc.
Food for thought.
[This message edited by hikingout at 8:55 AM, April 27th (Tuesday)]
