Ok Spidey here you go.

FWH is back home. He originally moved into the guest room before the baby was born, but hasn't slept there since we brought the baby home from the hospital. We are getting along very well and spending all of our time together since we are both off from work. Slowly the affection is starting to happen. Sometimes we'll hold each other at night, not often though but that's because of the screaming baby who doesn't like to sleep at night! He has spontanously held my hand a few times and he will hug me. But we still haven't kissed since he moved out of the house. SF isn't even an option for at least another 3 weeks (due to the birth) so that hasn't even been an issue.

His actions are that he seems to plan on being here for the long term. He has been renovating the basement for the last few weeks, so he can display all his sports memorabilia, and has been doing a lot of yard work. He hung all of our pictures in the hallway, pictures from our wedding and honeymoon included. These have been sitting waiting to be hung since we moved into the house two years ago. Plus when we hit the stores after Christmas, we bought a lot of stuff for next year.

We both continue to ignore all our problems and not bring them up. The plan was to get through the holidays and then see what happens. I was doing alright with this until earlier this week. I went to e-mail pictures of the baby out to family and friends and when I went to the address book on the web site to send the pictures (it automatically saves all addresses you send to) I saw OW's e-mail address. This means that he sent her pictures. Of course I didn't have the guts to do or say anything. I honestly believe he is not seeing her or talking to her, he is with me all the time and leaves his cell phone and blackberry out, plus he won't answer the phone if he doesn't recognize the phone number. But I know him, I'm sure he thinks that they can be friends. He is friends with all his ex-GF's. I know he can't be friends with her or even see her (they work together but FWH wants to quit his job) I just don't have the courage to talk about it.

I have the name of a MC that I am going to call next week and see if FWH will go with me. His Mom is off on Wednesdays so she could watch the baby while we went. We'll see what happens.

<small>[ January 01, 2005, 10:54 AM: Message edited by: kloe72 ]</small>

Thank you, Kloe. You two are the most conflict-avoiding couple I have ever heard of! Usually, just one person avoids conflict.

I hope you two do get into MC and learn to communicate, even if it does cause conflict. I think you will learn that avoiding is much harder than just getting it all out on the table.

Take care of you, and that adorable baby. Don't forget, I'll be there in May! You and I and SML still have our date! <img border="0" title="" alt="[Big Grin]" src="images/icons/grin.gif" /> Can't back out! <img border="0" title="" alt="[Wink]" src="images/icons/wink.gif" />

Spidey

kloe -

Hang in there. Might be the time to just rest up for awhile. Having gone through the A, a new baby and all - just breathe and relax for awhile.

All of this will have to be discussed and worked on, but not right away. Enjoy being a new mom.

Kloe,
Glad to hear things are going in what seems like the right direction. Hopefully with the MC it will speed things up a bit.

How is the baby doing? I can't believe how much they change from day to day. I just took Chloe to the doc's for them to check her eye out and she is up to 10 pounds already. She is a little piggy. <img border="0" title="" alt="[Big Grin]" src="images/icons/grin.gif" />

Have a Happy New Year....You are in my thoughts and prayers.

Just my two cents--our MC said to us that we were so great at being friends and hanging out--and avoiding conflict, but we were not intimate. We needed to explore why we were both so comfortable NOT being intimate? She said that when we were in disagreement and being honest about our emotions we were the most intimate. Some thoughts to chew on for you. Not just conflict avoidance, but intimacy avoidance. I have always been afraid of rejection if I showed who I really was. I guess I was pretty comfortable pre A not being intimate really, but not now!

Happy New Year Kloe!

That's all I will say for now, just happy New Year and I am so happy for you for having your baby girl.

There will be lots of time to get on you about your complacency later.

I would think a bit on what Anne said regarding why you and he are so comfortable avoiding intamacy.

Ooops, didn't mean to start on that now. <img border="0" title="" alt="[Big Grin]" src="images/icons/grin.gif" />

Kloe,

That is the way my FWH and I were also. I never spoke up about anything. We were both conflict avoiders and it sucked. I bit my lip so many times.

In my past year experience I have with the help of my IC begun to speak what is on my mind. I look back now and I don't know why I was afraid in the first place. It kind of seems ridiculous to me now honestly. I just let myself get walked over. Kind of strange really. Once I was in the Plan B and I learned that I could live on my own and I would be just find without him I figured that by saying things that I felt really were in my best interest, so I did. Now that I have done it, it isn't hard anymore. When I want to talk about something I just very nicely start talking about it or I asked a question and I go on from there. You will get it eventually. Once you do it, it just moves forward.

Also I wanted to tell you that is how my FWH came home. We didn't have a baby or anything, but OW dumped him and then we talked I laid down my boundaries good and solid. NC and all of that. Then he slowly moved back in, slowly moved his stuff in. We began shopping for the house, working on the house and talking of the future again. It has been an awful ride for us. OW is definately out of our lives forever you can just tell when the attraction is gone and they come around to you. They act differently in lots of ways.

We have a better marriage now then we had the first 7 years we were married. It is unfortunate that it took this to wake us up so to speak. We talk a lot, and if he has something he wants to say we listen to him as a family. He was always on 2nd shift so we had a family without him before. Now he is on days and we are a real family. We eat dinner together at our table every night (except our 4 YO, who you would have to tie there.....LOL) but we try anyway with him also.

My point being things change quickly. I am certainly not sending out thank you cards to OW, but honestly this is the marriage I want now. We are both happy. Intimacy will come in time also. I think the FWS holds a lot of guilt and it makes it hard to be intimate in the beginning. As far as the email goes delete her name from the computer. That is your home with your DD and you don't need that kind of reminder around your house. Just delete and move on. I threw a lot of stuff away as I found it. It hurt all over again, but once it was out of my house I felt better. Then once I was able to talk to him I asked him to clean his stuff out because this was our home, not theirs.

Good luck and enjoy that baby! Hugs and prayers to you.

HINY

Well the New Year has started off very good. This morning FWH and I laid in bed and held each other and he told me that he loved me for the first time since D-Day. We also kissed for the first time and it was nice. This is a good start for the New Year!

</font><blockquote><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:</font><hr /><font size="2" face="Verdana, Arial">Originally posted by kloe72:
<strong> Well the New Year has started off very good. This morning FWH and I laid in bed and held each other and he told me that he loved me for the first time since D-Day. We also kissed for the first time and it was nice. This is a good start for the New Year! </strong></font><hr /></blockquote><font size="2" face="Verdana, Arial">How wonderful - I'm very happy for you!

YAY!!!

Wooo-hoooooo!

How have the last couple days been, Kloe???

</font><blockquote><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:</font><hr /><font size="2" face="Verdana, Arial">Originally posted by Anne6263:
Just my two cents--our MC said to us that we were so great at being friends and hanging out--and avoiding conflict, but we were not intimate. We needed to explore why we were both so comfortable NOT being intimate? She said that when we were in disagreement and being honest about our emotions we were the most intimate. Some thoughts to chew on for you. Not just conflict avoidance, but intimacy avoidance. I have always been afraid of rejection if I showed who I really was. I guess I was pretty comfortable pre A not being intimate really, but not now! </font><hr /></blockquote><font size="2" face="Verdana, Arial">A very important point!

This is almost straight out of "Passionate Marriage" by Schnarch.

WOW

Pep

Spidey - The last few days have been very good, other then the baby refusing to sleep at night so intimacy is out of the question! But we are becoming more comfortable with each other around the house, kissing, hugging and touching instead of being careful not to invade the others space like we did at first. Plus both of us go out of our way for the other person.

I do want to investigate why we got so comfortable being friends and avoided intimacy. That is not the type of M I/we want going forward. I know I have a huge fear of rejection, plus I am not very comfortable with my body so both of these factors I'm sure contributes to our issues.

What good news!!!! You are in my thoughts and prayers...