Going to agree with what has just been said, marriage is what the two of you wish for it to be. The harder part is can those things match up enough that both people are satisfied?
I like this list:
Vulnerability and humility
Deep answers to why
Empathy uninterrupted by shame
Passion, including sex
The full truth, to my satisfaction
Respect
The scope of this is reasonable. I would say that my husband could have written this when deciding on reconciling. I think there was an unintentional report card running in his head for a long time.
It took after he cheated for me to understand it.
All marriages have moments or days where we are not harmonious with one another. But after betrayal, your lizard brain is weighing risks. The simply weigh more than ever and you are going to be more vigilant over them than ever.
I am not dismissing your need to have this list met. I am simply saying sometimes things feel like a larger catastrophe or we may even find things that were once tenable to suddenly being untenable. It’s part of the consequences - everything is broken to differing degrees.
So I am going to use the example of passion (and I know that doesn’t just mean sex, but I am going to mostly refer to sex because it’s a bit more tangible)). Prior to my affair I would say I initiated maybe 15 percent of the time but was receptive 95 percent of the time. I don’t know why, but initiating doesn’t come natural to me. I initiate affection quite often, maybe more than he does but when it comes to sex I would like for it to naturally evolve rather than someone stake a claim on what’s about to happen. Hard to describe.
Anyway, after my affair I read here from many of the Bh’s that I should be initiating all the time. I did as they said and it provided an ongoing positive reaction from my h. But as time went along, it became apparent to me that it was inauthentic behavior on my part, and probably a band aid for his.
Not because I didn’t want my husband or love my husband. It’s several things- the flow just wasn’t there - I missed having my reaction to him come from his reaction to me. Without that element my desire went down. My lack of healing went hand in hand with that lack of authenticity. In fact healing looked far more like finding the courage to be myself in that area. I had to put away my fear of losing him and try to create something organic between us once again.
Sex is very complicated especially after an affair. For both the ws and the bs.I like that you use the word Passion. That is exactly the element that was missing. But passion for me requires emotional connection, I needed to become vulnerable and so did he. I needed to take the risk of being me and still be accepted and loved. He needed time to sort out quite a bit as well. But it took us both walking towards each other for the passion to really come back. One person can’t really do that on their own.
The emotional connection that came from that struggle of transitioning to a new normal put us in the path to restoring it. Of course this was interrupted because that is about when I found out he was having his own affair.
So at that point I went to initiating zero and being receptive very very little. I felt no hope that we should be working in our marriage, yet I had been on a three year trajectory with almost that as a single focus.
The part that sucks about having lists is we often still love this person that has hurt us so deeply. Our lists give us a logical thing to focus on. But there is no logic to how you restore passion after an adultery. Or trust. Or love. And on paper almost any list I could come up with for us to stay together felt weak. It took two people who kept working towards giving each other grace.
The question of what is marriage is a good one. I think the answer is two people who are committed to each other and who put each others well-being as important as their own.
An affair blows that all to hell. For those who choose to reconcile, marriage then becomes years of a nuanced, long term struggle where one person has to go on a journey to restore the idea that they will put the others well being as important as their own, while trying to figure out what allowed them to do such an awful thing so they can fix themselves. The other has to restore their ability to trust their own intuition while processing a brain altering trauma. And they both have to do the difficult work of not allowing this to define who they are. It’s takes years, and with no guarantee of whether it will even work.
As for the why, there is never going to be a satisfying answer. The reason is because there isn’t going to be one that is good enough for what hell it’s put you through. It comes full circle- after someone traumatized you to the point of this kind of betrayal- nothing they say or will add up to that kind of weight to make the scales of justice balance. No restitution will fill the gigantic gaping hole it cut in your heart.
I tried to pay. I paid in sex, in love bombing, in serving. But the only thing that ever got me anywhere was to stop being afraid to be authentic even if it sometimes was the opposite of what he thought I should be doing to win him back.
And when we would fight, the relationship would seem especially unredeemable. After his affair, I often would think about divorce with every fight, which was daily for a while.
It’s hard to say that it just takes time because everyone’s results can be so much different from one another. Time doesn’t mean ultimately staying together. But I do know for the couples who are happily reconciled on this board, it took many years. Year two is disillusionment for many of the bs. So you are in good company. As for your wife, difficult for any of us to have a firm grip based on a list, even a very good list. And that is some of the torment. Is this pain and struggle going to be worth it? There is no crystal ball if the marriage dies, survives or thrives. I am pretty sure it will always be hard to say the pain was worth it, however you might find enough piles of things that are worthwhile to let it be.
Sissoon said it best: better to focus on the healing than the marriage. I think this goes for both ws and bs. The health of a marriage is limited to the healthiness of the individuals in it. That being said, you are always pretty balanced in what you share here, and I see that as very healthy. I don’t have enough insight on you wife to say the same. For certain, whomever focuses on their own healing may find much more in the “worthwhile pile” regardless of the outcome of their marriage.
Sorry it’s been a bad day.
[This message edited by hikingout at 5:32 AM, Monday, January 15th]