I like what foreverlabeled and Daddydom said.
The hardest thing about getting out of our WS thinking is that we have to learn to love ourselves. And, to have true love for oneself means that you act in alignment with your integrity, you take care of yourself so you can take care of others, you become a student of how you can be better. For me that included to stop overthinking, to pay attention to my thoughts and learn to reframe them.
People who love themselves respect themselves. And people who love themselves and respect themselves are capable of loving and respecting others. My biggest concern for this relationship moving forward is that your husbands ideas of what you need to do to help him heal are at odds with what you need to do to get better.
This is not that unusual. One of the things I had to do was to stop people pleasing and figure out what I wanted from a relationship and learn to say it. That is extremely uncomfortable when your husband needs reassurance and consistency.
One thing that we did at the point where that rubbed is that my IC and I allowed him to come to a session in which we discussed what my goals were for therapy. This is not a good idea if you have a bad counselor because you do not want to convey this as this is all I need to do.
I think all WS have problems with integrity, for example. So, we made sure that in that session we talked about the fact mine was not where I thought it was and that one of my goals was to restore it. For myself. Not just to save the marriage but I was very clear that I let myself down by not enforcing my morals of what is right versus wrong.
I think that if your husband continues to look at whether you will give him your kids, whether you will let him have his oddly specific 6 month affair, he is not going to heal and neither are you. He is not going to heal having to carry more of the responsibility for the kids. And, as all WS who are here readily know that having an affair really just fucks you up worse. His solutions are not the solutions that will actually work for either of you.
That being said, I agree with foreverlabeled, moving forward you need to be a woman of your word. And, when you fail, you need to be a woman who has enough compassion and belief in herself to rise and try a new tactic to get over whatever obstacle you are throwing at yourself.
I think too if you know backrubs relax you enough to sleep, then you need to cut those short. Or, maybe agree to get them and give them after sex has been completed. You made a poor decision here, yes. But, if every time that happens it's met with you calling yourself a piece of shit you are not moving towards healing.
And, it's important to know that there are WS who have come to this site and turned themselves inside out trying to help their BS to no avail. I don't mean, don't try and help him at all. But know the only outcome you can control is who are you going to be moving forward? The more you heal yourself the more you will have to give to help those around you. And the more you heal the more healthy you will be and the more you will be able to cope with everything around you. Right now I am not sure that you guys are on a good path at all, professional intervention is likely needed.
[This message edited by hikingout at 3:15 PM, June 1st (Tuesday)]