# reconciliation



## As'laDain

your past marriage is OVER.
you chose to reconcile, so you are working on a NEW MARRIAGE.

that means you are a new person. you have changed(dont tell me you havent, ive been there. if your there, you have changed)

your wayward SPOUSE is a new person. whether thats a good thing or not, it doesnt matter. she is new and your going to have to deal with that. 


so, you want to reconcile? do you have what it takes? i ask that because i can assure you that if you think of them as the same, you will judge them as the same person who hurt you. if they are new, then its easy to fly to 50,000 feet and just watch and see how this new person does. 


if they show the same traits as the person who betrayed you, then pop smoke and get the hell out of dodge. 

they might not do that though. they may act like somebody you have never seen before. they may act like someone who really values your happiness above their own. if that happens, then you know that your new spouse is the one for you. you will know that you can live in a marriage with them.


remember, your last marriage was violated. that means it ENDED!

when you choose to reconcile, you CHOOSE to create an entirely new marriage. your free to be a new person, since the person you married to begin with either never existed or ceased to exist. everything you thought you knew about your spouse was apparently wrong. it means your going to have to change things if you want to be married to this new person that you now realize is in front of you. 


are you ready for it? i have to warn you, its not easy. expect fights, resentments, arguments, and strife. but on the same token, you can also expect companionship, love, sex, intimacy, and understanding. 

actually, you can expect whatever you want. you get to be whatever you want, remember? its only fair. 


but, whatever you do, whoever you decide to be, be honest. dishonesty is what led you(or rather, your spouse) to get to this point, right? 

so be honest. be who YOU are.
you will be fine.


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## WolverineFan

I agree with almost everything - it is a great approach. I certainly understand the need to see things as "new". The word of God uses that phrase to describe a new believer - they are "born again". Blessings on you, and thanks for sharing!


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## As'laDain

how do we rebuild ourselves and reconcile after having our entire worlds ripped apart by the knowledge that the person we thought was safe turns out to be anything but?


this is the hardest question to answer. generally, with marriage issues, i know how to deal with things. but, i dont know how to tell others how to get passed the feelings of complete hopelessness and betrayal. i have been looking all over the place for something that can explain the process of picking yourself back up. the process of rebuilding yourself so that we can be who we were always meant to be. i KNOW it can be done, because i have done it, but its always been difficult for me to lay out the process of HOW i got here. 


so, i dont know if this going to help anyone, but i figured i might as well lay out the mental process i went through. so first... D day. 

instead of going into details, im just going to explain what went through my head, how i felt, what i thought.

so, D day... when i found out, i couldnt look at her. my stomach turned into knots and i quickly walked away, and went to the latrine in my company building and threw up in the toilet. this was supposed to be the one person i could trust right? how could she do that to me? 


well, i went through that for a while. i had tried so hard to be a good husband and let her know i love her, and it felt like i had wasted all my efforts. but my wife did make it a lot easier on me, she showed remorse. still, the next step in my mental revolution took place before she even got to show me how remorseful she really was... i realized that i didnt know her, at all. 

i mean, that should seem obvious, i had no idea she was capable of infidelity, but it came as a huge revelation to me. and looking back, i see that that is where i started to heal. i kept thinking that something had to be wrong with me until i realized that SHE is not who i think she is. it was a hard thing to accept... all of our history up to that point felt like a lie... at first. i kept thinking that it must have been a lie, but then i thought, what if i was just wrong? what if i was just wrong about her from the start? i kept thinking that i must know her, so every time she did something that hurt, i assumed that i knew WHY she did it. i always assumed that she understood what i was feeling when she did something that hurt me. but that obviously wasnt true, because who would even begin to think about doing something like that if they knew how much it hurt? if they could feel it, NOBODY would such a terrible thing. 
she was a stranger!

all these thoughts went through my head before she really got a chance to show remorse. before i even saw or spoke to her after finding out. so, i went home that day feeling like i was walking into a foreign relationship with a complete stranger. how could i trust her? i obviously dont know this person. i decided that i had to get a divorce. but then she through me for a loop... she showed genuine remorse. she offered anything to keep from losing me. so i had more to think about... do i start fresh with someone else, or do i accept her, even though she is faulted?

i kept going back and forth, wanting to reconcile, wanting to leave her, wanting to punish her, wanting to just get away and forget that i even knew her. the more i thought about it, the more i decided that i would have to treat her like a complete stranger. if i think about her as my partner, my wife, the betrayal just hurts that much more. but, thats exactly what she was, at least at face value. 

eventually, i figured i might as well make a go at reconciling with this complete stranger of a wife. i had a lot invested in the marriage by that point, so why not. the other option was to never forgive her, and just leave her. maybe ill find bliss in the next relationship? 

anyway, there were a lot of things wrong with our marriage back then. she had been harboring a lot of resentments, i had been harboring a lot of resentments, and this really brought things to a head. the ONLY way i could even think about reconciling with her was if things were completely different. 


so, i got a bit self righteous. she showed remorse and wanted to reconcile, but there was no way in hell i was going to live with the same crappy marriage. there was the price i expected her to pay for my forgiveness... complete honesty. i wanted to know what i was dealing with. i decided that i was never going to hold something in again. if its bothering me, i will make it quite clear to her what it is, and i will make sure she knows exactly what to do to help me let it go. i would do the same. 

so if i did something that hurt her or triggered her, i expected her to forgive me. i also expected her to tell me what she was feeling. it took me about a month to come to this decision. for a month, i just kept going back and forth between reconciliation and walking out the door. 

so, i treated my wife like a complete stranger. i didnt know her, so i grilled her about what was going on in her head. i wanted a wife who could stand on her own two feet, and could be trusted. but, she was not trustworthy in a lot of areas. i needed to know why. i got quite hard headed. either she will open up herself to me fully or we might as well call it quits. she was afraid of doing that though, so it took a lot of coaching... i had to provide some incentives. 


as it turned out, my wife had a lot of issues. i learned a LOT after Dday. a lot of things that i hadnt the slightest inkling of. but holy crap was it a long and often frustrating process trying to figure all this out. i had to be kind of an ass a lot of times just to get the truth out of her. 

i started to learn that in her entire life, nobody ever cared to dig into my wifes head to see what was really going on. nobody ever cared enough to deal with her outbursts and find out what was really the issue. she grew up without being held accountable in a healthy way. from an early age, she was told that she cannot deal with her own issues in life. she was not responsible with money, and i really believe that it was because she was raised to believe that she cannot manage her own finances. her family is terribly dysfunctional...


so, these were the things i learned that i would have to deal with. i started seeing her in a different light. as i found out more and more of the nuances of how her mind worked, i started to realize that she was NEVER really happy. 

there was so much crap from her past that caused her to walk in fear and anxiety. she was like a child...

so, after i learned all these things, the next step was addressing them. she wanted to remained married to me right? well then, she had better be accountable damnit! i was still feeling pretty disconnected when i started seeing things this way. that disconnect made it SO much easier for me to lay out a new way of dealing with things. i realized that i had no way of knowing what she was thinking and feeling if she wasnt talking, so whenever she blew up at me, it was easy to let it go and not let it get to me. when she blew up at me, all i knew was that i hadnt done anything wrong. there was no telling what part of her twisted past popped back up to cause her to react so negatively. thinking about that made it much easier to not take things personally. strangely enough, it made it easier to hold her accountable for her outbursts. after all, it wasnt my fault that some innocuous thing i did reminded her of how she felt when she was 17...

at the same time, it humbled me enough to actually own my own triggers. i didnt exactly have the greatest upbringing either, and sometimes i triggered and would take it out on her. when i realized when those moments were, i started apologizing for taking it out on her. 


about a year into our R, i started thinking about the marriage i WANT. not just being able to forgive her for infidelity, i wanted to feel the damn butterflies. i wanted to be in love with her!

so, i would imagine the place i want to be. but how to get there? first, i needed her to turn me on. not too hard, she is quite attractive. and, i wanted her to want me the same way i wanted to want her. that was a bit harder... we were practically in a sexless marriage at that point. 

she always had a fantasy that i could easily fulfill for her, but the few times she hinted at it, i shut her down. and that didnt help my case much.... stupid, stupid, stupid! how could i be so dumb as to pass up a chance to turn my wife on?

well, im not perfect either. **** happens, and i didnt see things for what they were when she brought it up to me the first time. anyway, i kept up the mindset that i was not going to leave well enough alone if it wasnt going to be enough. if i could learn to desire her, she could learn to desire me. i just had to find out how. 

the rest is pretty much history. it seems like sexual attraction was the final key at that point. we had learned to work through our insecurities and triggers, all that was left really was to reconnect. so i talked to her about it, a LOT, and we started finding things that we could enjoy doing together. she started telling me, in very plain and simple terms, how to get into her pants. it sounds crass when i say it like that, but i want to be _wanted_. i want to be desired. it makes ME feel loved. she wanted to be loved too, so she needed me to do things for her that make her feel loved. but, for sex, she needed just a bit more in order to really get into it, and thats where the fantasies came in. 

you could say that my marriage is better after the infidelity, but to be honest, i dont even think of it as the same marriage. i see my wife differently now, i feel different now. who i have now is someone who understands me a hell of a lot better than the woman who cheated on me. who she has now is someone who understands her a hell of a lot better than the she cheated on. we are both changed, forever. and not in a bad way i think. 

i had to let go of the idea that i even knew who my wife was. i couldnt reconcile when i still thought i knew her, because if i thought i knew her, i would judge her. i went to 50,000 feet because i was married to a stranger. i expected the stranger to act like someone worth loving, and then i fell in love with her. 


today, i feel like my wife and i are a team. that is something i have never felt in my life before. even when we were married before Dday, i had never had anyone who shows that they always have my back, and that they will stick by my side no matter what. i have that NOW though. i didnt feel that before the infidelity. it took a lot of work, a lot of forgiveness, and a lot of introspection. it was one hell of a wake up call... things HAD to change. 


it started with me recognizing the fact that i DIDN'T know her, even though i thought i did. ill never make THAT mistake again... and i expect the same from her. either we will know each other and accept each other _together_ or we will be ignorant of each other _apart_. but we will never again be ignorant of each other _together_.

im not sure why i write this stuff here... i guess i just want to let people know that it IS possible to get passed this kind of thing. it doesnt mean the end of the relationship, but it does mean that things HAVE to change. but why should that bother anyone who wants to reconcile? the way things were before just didnt work. 


today, my wife is a completely different person. before all this went down, she felt like she could never be loved. she felt unlovable. she felt that way because thats what she was raised to beleive. she is happy now. and i couldnt be more proud of her. she has faced so many demons in the last few years that she seems like she is capable of anything now. im glad i didnt give up on her. i would be missing the beautiful person that she has worked to become.


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## commonsenseisn't

I'm glad for your success. People here need to hear more success stories for inspiration. 

I think so many of us here on TAM are so gung ho (rightfully so in many cases) to divorce that reconciliation is not given its rightful attention. 

I honestly don't know if I would have the strength to reconcile with an adulterous wife. There must be many out there such as yourself who are better people than I.


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## Kevinb

Thank you...


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## allwillbewell

Like AD my fwh and I are in R though our recovery was not quite he same..very complicated with Tt, FR and continued attempts to this day by OW to contact him...but bottom line is that I too consider ours to be a new marriage..he is a different person to some extent. It is almost like we divorced and remarried tho we spent not a day apart after dday.

It has been very difficult to accept that I didn't KNOW him at all, never would have guessed at what levels of betrayal he was capable of. But understanding that all of us as humans are capable of inflicting pain upon others helped me to begin the process of forgiveness.

Like AD we have both gone thru an immense amount of self examination and have come out on the other side understanding that honesty and gentle communication of that honesty are absolute necessities to our new marriage.

We are doing very well. My only problem is that the emotional pain of the triggers and memories has not really faded. I dont dwell as much on those memories but if I dont squash them immediately, they are still capable of causing a lot of self doubt and emotional pain.

We are having our old wedding rings recast into new rings to symbolize our new marriage. The outward sign of our new committment. That and the passage of time hopefully will lessen the pain for both of us.


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