Getting away can be good. Can help you detach.
Yes, infidelity sends life and relationships directly into the shitter. It’s true. But what we want you to know is that there is a path to happiness for you. It’s a long one. But it’s one that many here have successfully travelled.
It is completely up to your WW if she is willing and able to follow you down that path.
In order to do so, she has to become giving and open to whatever you need to heal. She needs to be supportive and honest.
It’s as if she somehow came to a point where she was aiming a gun at your heart and pulled the trigger. How she responds to that action after the fact shows whether or not she is all in with you.
If she rushed to your side, began cpr, called 911 and began nursing you. If she immediately started the work to figure out how she got to that point and to change who she was to even contemplate doing what she did, and learned how to truly protect the man she loves even from herself, then you could tell she was all in.
Of course if she blamed you for being at the wrong end of her gun’s barrel, saying you made her pull the trigger. Then you know you don’t have a true partner in recovery.
Something that will be telling is if you do confront her about the possible abortion. Watch how she reacts.
If she gets angry. If she gets defensive. If she gets accusatory. Then you know she only cares about herself.
If you hear “how dare you even think that! What must you think of me! How dare you accuse me of that….!”
Then you know. She does not have you in her heart.
Instead of you hear something like “{sobs, crying, falls to the floor} oh god, I’m so sorry. How hard must that be to ask me. I’m so sorry. No I didn’t. I promise you. But I understand. I understand why you’d ask. And how painful that must be for you to even think. Oh I’m so sorry. Is it ok if I hug you. You deserve so much better. I’ve hurt uou so badly. I don’t deserve you. Please forgive me. I promise that I’ll spend my life making this up to you. I’d understand if you’d leave me for even having to think that….”
Then you have someone who has potential of changing.
And the important thing to me hear, is that you make it clear to your wife, that you by far don’t see any proof that she cares enough to rebuild what she has destroyed. From the words you hear and the actions you see, she is no way someone you can ever contemplate staying married to.
And that until you hear those things and see the actions of a woman who is desperate to repair the damage she caused and that she has proven she’s willing to actually do that work, and you actually see her doing it, that you are not interested in wasting another minute of your life pretending she’s all in with you.
You’d love her to prove you wrong, but you’re not holding your breath. You don’t have high expectations of her after what she’s done the last 3-4 years and what she’s shown you since DDay.
Make it clear what you expect, and then move on until you not only see it and hear it, but see it COMPLETED. Promises are just words. She needs to prove to you that there is no one else in the world she would do anything for, and that she not only does what you ask for, but she does more. She researches what she should be doing, looks inside herself snd internalizes it, and then puts it all into action.
So please consider being very clear with her on this, then letting her go until you get what you need. I know it’s so hard. It’s impossible. Your heart has broken.
But until she becomes a true partner in your healing, you’re going to have to rely on yourself (and friends and family) to help crazy glue it back together.
[This message edited by Stevesn at 9:31 AM, July 23rd (Friday)]
