LIVING IN LIMBO

Kelly – I’m glad to see that you’re gaining so many insights but I want to challenge you on a few things:

1) It’s not “what is wrong with us” – it is “what is wrong with THEM?”! Many many people have FOO issues or weren’t fully emotionally “healthy” before meeting their partners and go on to live healthy & fulfilled lives in loving relationships. Our partners are sick predators who have manipulated us and put our lives at risk by their actions. If you can use this to learn more about yourself & better yourself, that is the one positive out of this shit storm. But please, don’t feel that this is about you. I’ve said on this site before – if they weren’t married to us, it would be some other sorry soul that they would be doing this to. It’s a sad reality that we are interchangeable.

2) Before you debate the merits of a polygraph (personally, I don’t want to be in a relationship with someone who I need to have take a poly every 3 months in order to believe they aren’t having sex with someone else), you need to really look at your h’s ACTIONS. They can talk a good game but when it comes to ACTIONS, they often are sorely lacking. You say it was a “small step” that he sleeps in the guest room – if he truly wants to recover and to gain your trust, he will do ANYTHING you ask him and be grateful for the opportunity. (The one person on this site who can really tell you what recovery looks like is Penny – when you hear what her husband is doing, you realize what recovery looks like.) Unfortunately, for so many of these men, when push comes to shove, they are only willing to do so much and we, as their partners, do not demand enough of them to do more. Trust me, I understand where you are coming from – it took me months to really see that my h. said all the right things – he loves me, he wants our family to stay together, he’s sorry, blah, blah, blah – before I really started separting out what he was saying and what he was or was not doing. He would do “just enough” to appear like he’s working on things and yes, he has made some progress – he sees a good therapist, he goes to SA meetings, etc. – but I know that there is no way in hell that someone who has been acting out for at least the past 10 years can stop doing what they are doing by reading books & seeing a therapist every week or so. It’s too ingrained in his character. And besides, for me, at the end of the day it doesn’t matter if he becomes this sparkly new guy – he still did these things to hurt me, hurt our marriage & our children and that is unforgiveable.