No contact for over one year.

The gaslighting has now dissolved.

You do recognize that your H's continued secret second life for years is the reason you were unable to recover your marriage. He was quite content to watch you suffer. Is he an honest man now? Does he recognize how wrong he was?

I do realize he maintained a fantasy I could not compete with. He contacted the OW August 2012 to say Happy B-day and she contacted him all by email Dec 2012 to say Merry Xmas. Admit he made these contacts w/out my knowledge or POJA March 2013. No more OW communications after. Continued to attend karate dojo, different dojo from the OW's. Still attending any dojo too risky for our relationship for multiple reasons but mainly triggers me and breaks husbands focus on marriage. He's honest. Not a big talker anyway. The structure of MB is good for this reason. The biggest deal in knowing recovery is moving forward has to do with my husbands willingness to stop attending dojo.

I agree. This is a major step for you and your H.

AM

Thank you army mama for checking back in. I am surprised you are still here after all this time and the fact you have recovered your marriage since the seminar in Minneapolis. Its great you can be helpful towards others in marital crisis.

Thanks, Graceful. H and I recall you both from our seminar. It certainly wasn't an easy time, but it has been worth all the work. H and I are currently re-reading "Draw Close" every night before we go to sleep.

AM

I'd say we were all in quiet despair. We have "Draw Close" but are currently reading He Wins/She Wins which has gotten my husband jazzed. Would like to be able to read "Draw Close" together at some point.

At this point I believe we have a huge potential to increase both love bank balances. I see ourselves in a transition. Its been difficult (not impossible) to organize ourselves to have time in our days for regular UA/meet EN. My husband agrees but still seems locked and loaded into maintaining what has been a set routine around other aspects of our lives. I am complaining w/thoughtful requests and I see small incremental changes however.

Still, given I am not spending non-productive hours a day worried so much about the future of our marriage ie: what am I going to do? where am I going to go? feeling despair and shame, and so on...

I am breaking down my own schedule and being as productive as I can be during my
work day while placing boundaries around my time knowing I've done my best with the time I've allotted to my work. This has felt really freeing as I don't spend too much time at something I can pick up tomorrow at the time frame I've set. Its trial a trying to figure this out. I like the sense of balance and accomplishment this provides.

I sense my husband is 'seeing' differently his own areas of responsibility. Being overly focused in a few aspects of the lifestyle he'd adopted meant other aspects were not attended. It seems he is just noting the outcomes. Sort of an unthawing and an emerging.

Dr Harley says to find things to do we both feel cheerful about rather then based on compulsion. This notion was interesting to me. I see a lot of our activity are driven by compulsions. So this will be a challenge. I see this perspective is a filter.