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What is your experience of the WS getting to a point where they stop demanding change before dealing with the harm they caused?

My WW wants me to address all the issues that "made her feel unloved" and will make her feel safe enough to listen to how she hurt me with her affairs. This seems like a nonstarter for me. I just cannot seem to work on things that she wants to see changed in me while she refuses to even listen to how I feel.

Argh.

In other news, she is now 26 days sober, going to AA and talking to her sponsor every day.

She has told me she realizes that all her efforts to rebuild trust over the past year were wasted because she was hiding her drinking and that led to lots of lying to me. I guess that’s progress.

Our MC has recommended we consider a marriage therapy intensive over a weekend. My WW is pushing for it. I’m apprehensive because my WW can’t handle an hour of emotionally difficult conversation without shutting down and running for a week. How are we going tot get through a whole weekend? Sounds like a waste of time and money to me.

What is your experience of the WS getting to a point where they stop demanding change before dealing with the harm they caused?

My WW wants me to address all the issues that "made her feel unloved" and will make her feel safe enough to listen to how she hurt me with her affairs. This seems like a nonstarter for me. I just cannot seem to work on things that she wants to see changed in me while she refuses to even listen to how I feel.

I can speak to this a little bit. I was like your WW in the beginning; I, too, immediately expected my BH to start working on the marital issues. It took a lot of, uh, strongly-worded but ultimately truthful and helpful conversations with members of this community to get me to realize my needs were going to have to take a big ol' back seat to recovering from the infidelity. One metaphor that I found helpful was comparing the infidelity to a shooting: The marital issue is some minor injury, like a skinned knee or a slap in the face, and the infidelity is like walking up to the BS and shooting them in the chest. Now the BS is bleeding out; they ought to be concerned about saving the BS's life, not putting a bandaid on the skinned knee. Or, maybe the marital issues are like a leaky roof, and the infidelity is like setting the house on fire. (Notably, you don't set your house on fire to resolve the leak.) Your WW needs to understand the devastating effects of infidelity first and foremost, and that recovering from that first needs to be priority. It also helps to know that it's way easier to approach marital conflicts effectively after one has worked on themselves.

You might consider directing her here, and having her post in Wayward Side with a stop sign. It might help her learn what she needs to learn as well as work through her own issues with those who have already done it to provide guidance and support.

Don't do the couples therapy weekend. That sounds disastrous. Focus on IC. She needs to get out of the shame-paralysis phase first.

The old issues you report are all issues your W has with herself. Once she takes responsibility for herself and starts to change from cheater to good partner - which will be signaled by her focusing on her own behavior - the old issues should fade, since she won't blame you because she feels unloved, and she'll be taking responsibility for her actions, including those which hurt you so much.

If she doesn't get there, my reco is to dump her and free yourself of the burden she is.

As you both take responsibility for yourselves, some old issues are likely to resurface . That's when you address them with (both of) your new strengths.

The old issues you report are all issues your W has with herself. Once she takes responsibility for herself and starts to change from cheater to good partner - which will be signaled by her focusing on her own behavior - the old issues should fade, since she won't blame you because she feels unloved, and she'll be taking responsibility for her actions, including those which hurt you so much.

If she doesn't get there, my reco is to dump her and free yourself of the burden she is.

As you both take responsibility for yourselves, some old issues are likely to resurface . That's when you address them with (both of) your new strengths.

100% agree with what sisoon wrote.

Affair repair always takes precedence over marital repair.

[This message edited by Unhinged at 4:17 PM, Sunday, May 24th]

As you both take responsibility for yourselves, some old issues are likely to resurface . That's when you address them with (both of) your new strengths.

I love this. My marriage had plenty of problems for sure. We both put much of that aside and have been working on ourselves and the infidelity issue first and foremost. As some of those older problems crop up, we both see and approach them much differently than before, and those old problems aren't nearly as problematic as we once viewed them. We just deal with things so much better now. Communication is so improved. I know it's a pretty tired platitude, but communication really is the key.