SurvivingInfidelity.com^®

Brief history- 32BW and 33WH, together 14 years, married 6, two young kids under 5yo. WH had almost 3 year A including 1x sex (AP lives in a different country) and the rest was via texting, sexting, and calls. Dday was two months ago.

So far, WH has been doing everything "right". He is putting his all into IC and supporting me. We've been in this sort of limbo, but assuming his efforts remain consistent, I really feel like I want to shift my mind set into working together towards R.

Maybe this is a stupid question, but did you actually have a conversation with your WS defining that you are ready to give R a true shot? And by that I do not mean "get over it" or rug sweep it, I mean dive deep into working through what happened, how it happened, vulnerabilities in our marriage (I'm already aware of several), how we can build a new dynamic for the future, etc. Or did you just fall into working on things?

Open to any advice you may have about this specific part of post A life. For context, I feel like I have moved through the intense initial trauma fog that started on Dday. I feel more rational, stable, and clear headed enough to make decisions and process everything.

This is a very GOOD thread to start...thanks for that!!

Maybe this is a stupid question, but did you actually have a conversation with your WS defining that you are ready to give R a true shot?

This is NOT a stupid question at all!! You will probably get very different perspectives on this...but here is MINE!! I told my H immediately after he confessed to his 9 1/2 week A...while working overseas...that our M was OVER. Within an hour we were talking about R...lol! I told him that for me to even THINK about R...that I had come up with ULTIMATUMS. He didn't have to do a single one...but if he didn't do EVERY ONE...we were done. These ultimatums were non-negotiable.

My H agreed to every one...and immediately did the 1st ultimatum...writing a NC message to the adultery co-conspirator. We discussed this months later. My H told me that when I left the room after telling him the M was over...his heart SANK. He told himself that IF I gave him another chance...he would do whatever it took. If I had known that...I probably would have given him MORE ultimatums...LOL!!

Seriously though...a little while later I started writing down what I wanted MY life to look like. I came up with...I wanted a happy and healthy M with a loving and faithful spouse. I told my H my life plan. I said that IF he agreed to this too...GREAT. If he didn't...I would find someone who would!! My H eagerly agreed to this plan too...and that was when we started down the R path together...with this goal in mind.

We never rugswept anything. We talked...argued...sometimes screamed...mostly me doing that. I had LOTS of questions...and thankfully my H was truthful about it. There were times he would get angry...and defensive. I would just calmly remind him what OUR life plan was...and most of the time it would calm him down to get back on track. I found out later that he felt I was asking certain questions to get an "excuse" to leave him. I told him that I had enough of a reason to leave him by him having his A!!! When we realized what our triggers were...we could work toward getting past them and moving on to getting back in R.

This wasn't EASY by any means. I often write though that 3 steps forward and 2 steps back is still PROGRESS!! It was around year 3 that I felt I had turned a corner in my healing. My H had been ALL IN from the beginning...but it took me a while to see that he was being sincere. It is often said on here that for R to be successful...BOTH parties have to be ALL IN. That was the case in MY situation.

For context, I feel like I have moved through the intense initial trauma fog that started on Dday. I feel more rational, stable, and clear headed enough to make decisions and process everything.

This is a GOOD place to be in! Please don't get discouraged if you feel you are backsliding...that is a NORMAL reaction at times. R is not linear...and recovering from this trauma definitely is a marathon...not a sprint. I didn't feel the ANGER phase until I was 6 months into R. It is often written on here that the healing timeline takes 2-5 years. It took me 7 years before I felt completely healed. But I was healing a little EVERY DAY...and that HELPS!!

Another thing that worked for ME is thinking on the positive side. You can read up on how this HELPS our brains to recover from traumatic events like this.

As long as you BOTH want R...it WILL happen!! It is amazing how something we never thought we could recover from...is something we recover from!! Life truly can be sooooooo GOOD!!!

I am so sorry that you are in this situation. I know that making that decision was overwhelming and so hard. For me, the sign was letting him move back in.. because I did make him leave the house when the discovery was made. However, we did have those discussions prior to that happening... about what it would take to make me feel safe and the measures needed in place. What will make you feel safe and have you had this conversation with him? I am glad that you ready to move forward.. it is so much better than being in limbo..I found that the most difficult. Life is tough. I relied so much on my faith during that time. Not sure I would have survived without it. HE can bring something beautiful from every season and I hope one day that you look back on these moments and see it. Praying for ya sis and hoping each day gets easier. God Bless.

Maybe this is a stupid question, but did you actually have a conversation with your WS defining that you are ready to give R a true shot? And by that I do not mean "get over it" or rug sweep it, I mean dive deep into working through what happened, how it happened, vulnerabilities in our marriage (I'm already aware of several), how we can build a new dynamic for the future, etc. Or did you just fall into working on things?

A combination of both. I had two ddays so on the first one I was like "oh, out of my way, I can fix this" and committed to R in 40 min. 🙄

Dday2 … I was committed to D but WH ask for permission to show me he was worth yet another chance so I started focusing on myself and taking some prep actions for a life without him whilst also watching some of his actions.

When I saw his head appeared to be out of his ass I started committing to give it a bit more time on monthly basis. By this I mean I would actively commit to staying for another month, this wasn’t to keep him on his toes, it just felt more manageable for me emotionally as I kept struggling with letting go of the outcome.

WH didn’t ask for definite commitment and whilst we operated like that work was happening, I was in IC, he was in IC and together deep dived into the affair and why it happened. About 2 years post dday the conversations naturally evolved towards what we want our life together to look like and we started MC.

I would say… from my personal observation I would advise against a full commitment to R. First because a lot of WH believe that means rug sweeping, secondly because realistically you don’t know what the outcome will be. A better commitment would be to try and attempt reconciliation and see where it takes you.

Within an hour of my W's revealing her A, we both said we wanted to stay together, if possible. My W's desire was unconditional; I was the one who added 'if possible'. We talked about requirements for R very soon after d-day, long before I committed to R. I observed my W for 60-70 days to see if she was meeting my requirements. She met them and looked like she would continue to meet them, so I committed to R 90 days out - a longer delay might have been better, I think.

R really is a question about the future - what you both will do - much more than about the past - what you've done. You have to heal, and your H has to heal to be able to create a new M that serves you both, but you can't create that M unless you both know what you want and agree on what it will be.

R is a process of resolving issues when they're small and presumably easier to resolve. That may sound conflictual, but if you address issues when they're small, the conflicts are small. During 'R', those issues are likely about the A. As you resolve the A issues, you'll find, IMO, lots of day-to-day issues raising their heads. They need to get resolved, too. That's why I think that R morphs into M. That's my experience anyway. At some point I declared myself to have R'ed and healed, but R is a continuum, not a project with a defined start and end.

JMO, of course.

If you've got a question, ask it.

But, you know, there are a lot of readers of SI. If you have a question, another reader probably has the same question, so I encourage you to take the risk of asking. If it's a dumb question, people here will be gentle.

[This message edited by SI Staff at 10:55 PM, Wednesday, March 1st]