SurvivingInfidelity.com^®

I've been thinking about this a lot lately and I think she is into R as long as I can "take responsibility for my part in the rift in our marriage". shocked

She told her best friend early on, that she is willing to try for R as long as I am willing to change. What!? OMG.

This is incredibly worrying. Your WW still wants to keep you under her control by putting conditions SHE dictates for R.

If that is her attitude and it continues, there isa snowflakes chance in hell that you will have a successful R.

She is fighting you all the way, kicking and screaming, which is why I don't think she really wants R.

If she wanted to walk with you on the R path, she would have no conditions set for you. She would be gladly doing everything you asked, and looked for more things to do to help.

You are currently travelling the R path with a very reluctant companion.

RR

I have a slightly different view of the R process, but I end up in the same place.

IMO, it's entirely reasonable for the WS to have requirements for R. It shows involvement, and R is much easier if both partners are actively and honestly involved.

While I think it's reasonable for the BS to consider changing, if one partner does not want to make the changes the other partner wants, that's a great signal that the M won't work.

My W has wanted me to make some changes ever since we started up together. That's 59 years. Not deal killers because 1) it turns out I benefit from the changes she wants; 2) she acknowledges that I simply can't make some of the changes she wants; 3) she loves and accepts me as I am, change or no change (and vice versa).

As for requirements, I feel fine doing what she requires of me, and she feels fine giving my what I require of her.

If we did not fit together as well as we do, we wouldn't have gotten married, and I wouldn't have chosen R after her A.

In some respects, this is just me and my ways. In other resects, though, I suggest emulating these ways: if you and your partner do not fit well enough together, my reco is to split.

- She maintains the view that our marriage had a "rift" that I was partially responsible for and that contributed to her affair. I resist her a lot here because I feel like it's blame shifting, marriages don't cause affairs, and also most of her complaints she never discussed until after the affair was revealed. I am willing to do things she need me to do, I was before the affair as well, but she never talked to me about this stuff before.

I missed this until above a little bit...

I think that this most likely is plain old blame shifting.

That said, I am with sisoon in that I think doing a full accounting of the M prior to the A should still be on the board.

Your wife stabbed the marriage in the back through the heart, but if the marriage also already had stage 4 cancer, maybe it's not worth saving at all...

If changes are needed in the marriage irrespective of the affair, they should be fair game as marital problems. The WS doesn't have to pay infinite penance in a relationship that they don't like because they made an awful transgression.

I don't want to sound too much like Esther Perel, but the affair is going to light up the marital scoreboard. Without giving an ounce of blame shifting of the marital problems to the affair or an ounce of credit to the affair in improving marriage 2.0, it's possible that you will learn communication tools and improve as a person by way of recovering from the A that will also give you better tools to deal with the pre-existing issues.

[This message edited by This0is0Fine at 10:28 PM, Friday, November 22nd]