Copied from another thread- any advice?
I have read about half of the book. I stopped in the middle because it goes into rebuilding and I don' thtink we are there yet. Here's the background, I'll try to keep it short. D-day was last month Sept 17th. We've been married 19 years next month (Nov 2nd). 3 kids- 18-14-9. Our relationship has been not great for a long time. We'd both become complacent, or so I thought. She obviously was more than complacent. Once it was out in the open i ttook me about 2 days to realize I wanted her back. It was a complete shock to me but was also a wakeup call that things were worse for her than I thought. I went through the "normal" emotions & responses- anger, extreme hurt, loss of trust, etc. They say that an earthquake is the worst natural disater to experience because we all expect that the groud is always stable. I think this betrayal is emotionally comparable. Since D-day, I have been trying to control the emotion and especially the anxiety. She doesn't know what she wants but doesn't believe there is any way to have a good marraige. We married because she was pregnant after dating only 3 months. She was 23, I was 27. She feels like her youth was taken away. She has felt like this is the reason for her unhappiness and that love is something that you just feel. I believe that even though we didn't start under perfect circumstances, that people can learn to love each other especially with a 19 year history. She doesn't buy this and thinks you have to have the "chemistry". So she is not really thinkng that it's possible to do any thing to make our relationship better. I've told her that if unhappiness is based on getting married too young, then there is no way to go back & change history so we are doomed. Her confusion now is whether to stay in an unhappy relationship for the kids & because of the downside of divorce or to go ahead & divorce to go look for the fairy tale. I don't think she belives yet that there is an option to make a new life which I very much belive. In a nutshell, she is afraid to divorce because she doesn't belive in herself enough to think she can make it on her own and she doesn't want to remain unhappy in the marraige. She says she fells trapped. I had my first session with Steve last week & he said to see if she could just agree that we should explore whether there might be a way to change or marriage, not to try to push anything on her. We are still together which I am hanging onto as a good sign. We have been sleeping in seperate bedrooms because she can't get intimate with me right now. I know there has been at least one contact (phone) with the OM since D-day. It is a long distance thing. I know from snooping in her calendar (yes, I said I've been through all the normal reactions) that he is going to be back in this state next week & I suspect that she has plans to meet him. She knows for the last 2 days that I suspect this but I've tried not to keep forcing the issue. I'm just waiting to see what happens. I'll know if they get together. She's not the greatest at covering her tracks. Since I've told her my suspcions, she has gone back into that agitated mode that, looking back, she's always gotten into when she knows there was a meeting planned. 20/20 hindsight. So much for keeping this short. There's so much more. I really appreciate the prompt replies and when I get through this I want to return the favor to future hurting people. Any advice for the coming week & how to handle what may happen is much appreciated.
