So it’s been way too long since I’ve posted. My apologies to anyone who was following along.
So, I believe that we’re into rebuilding. I also believe that my W may have been more of an MLT than full blown MLC, just based on length of replay.
That said, pre-bomb drop - during her affair, and then the six months we were separated, she was just as much in lala land as any other MLCer. It’s been just over 10 months since she came back home and about a month since she first voiced a desire to recommit and rebuild.
Counselling continues, mostly for her, but with joint sessions as well. We both know what we need to work on. Although she’s still taking small steps back towards “us”, and she still hasn’t shown clear remorse, or at least hasn’t verbalized it to me, there has been clear, certain progress towards rebuilding.
We are both working very hard on communicating better and being clear in expectations. So for, it feels like the tendency for her to subjugate her feelings and “accept” things she doesn’t like is less common. I’m working so hard on listening to care instead of fix. Also trying really hard to speak her languages, knowing how much of a difference that makes.
Overall, I see her as having come out of the tunnel, definitely changed in some ways, but also coming back to many of her positive qualities that I missed during replay and monstering.
Personally, I’ve avoided most of my cycling over the last few months by just accepting her anger that she has directed at me, showing grace, and realizing that so much of it is projection. We’ve also talked more about it after she’s calmed down and she’s getting better at understanding herself.
She’s also slowly understanding her FOO issues and that other’s expectations need not be her own. And that she can voice her expectations of me, in adult discussions, and that it will help much more than swallowing disappointment when I don’t meet expectations, that I didnt’ even know about.
I’m one hundred percent confident that if I hadn’t found this forum, that I wouldn’t have had the patience and understanding to stand successfully and to understand the painful journey that my W was going through...
Our journey continues and there are still many bumps in the road forward, but it is so much more manageable when she has said she wants to walk that path with me.
Onward.