One of the most difficult thinks to accept is that it’s in her hands.
Exactly. Her destiny is in her hands, you in yours.
As a BS, we’re compelled to try and save the marriage, usually to our detriment. Sometimes we do it by accepting blame for the affair and more than our portion of blame for any marital dysfunction. We do this because it gives us the illusion of control over the outcome.
"All I have to do is be a better husband and she’ll come back to me and everything will be alright."
Sometimes we will love bomb, pick me dance, make very compromising concessions, allow fence sitting, door matting, reframing of boundaries.
Sometimes we try to bully them back with rage, threats, public humiliation, reporting to HR, dislodgment, or we play on any sympathy or guilt that they might still possess.
Sometimes we animate our WSs like marionette puppets, telling them what, exactly, to do, what books to read, how to "act" remorseful, what counseling to get, what boundaries to establish. We preempt organic empathy and initiative with excessive WS hand holding and they inevitably learn remorse-rotely, they don’t actually feel it.
Reconciliation is hard even with truly remorseful WSs who are determined to save the marriage and truly desire the marriage. It’s going to take you many months of reconciliation before you can make an initial determination as to the authenticity of their remorse. It’s going to take time and consistent actions over time before you can make that determination.
So, R is a huge leap of faith that you’re both making. You’re blindly trusting that she’s truly remorseful and she’s blindly trusting that you might someday have her back, maybe even forgive. None of you know for certain if either of you are R material until you make that leap.
But, let’s not get ahead of ourselves. Your WS is still in the affair.
On your journey out of infidelity, your WS will be met with many sobering, bracing reality checks up to and including a slap-up-side-the-head service of divorce papers. If that doesn’t break her from her fog, then nothing will, and nothing else should.
[This message edited by RealityBlows at 1:12 AM, Tuesday, February 27th]