Gentle reminders to be brave

[VJasper86]

Just need some gentle polite reminders to hold my nerve and that I am doing the right thing.
I posted a while back after being really proud that I had told dh that I wasn't happy.
Him being unfaithful a while ago and my counselling gave me the confidence to speak up and say that I don't think I am over it and I am not sure I can be.
We decided to take a month to think, look into options and come back to the table with what we had found.
In hindsight I wish I hadn't given a month as I had looked into things in the first week.
I've focused on what I feel the problems are (with him and also self reflection), I've contacted a relationship counsellor to see what is involved etc, I've looked at what benefits I may be entitled to should we split.
I've covered a lot of bases.
I am now just playing the waiting game and it sucks. In this lull of waiting for the month to be up (we have a date and time "booked") he has started to help more, he's making more effort. It is starting to make me doubt trial separation.
Maybe I do live him and I can get back that sexual attraction. Maybe it would be a mistake, is this just a bad patch and we'll get through it.
On the other hand it feels its been quite easy for him to help more, so why the F wasn't he helping a year ago when I was screaming our for support. Do I really want to move on from seeing a message saying "lucky I had bottoms on", I deserve better even if that was 7 years ago.

Taking a month may be useful, OP. You’ve done a lot of work in the first week, which is great. I suggest keeping notes or a diary, to have a record (for your own use) of how your feelings/ his behaviour/ your reactions etc may change as time goes on.

Importantly, is his affair definitely over? If not, that would be a dealbreaker for me.

Having three more weeks gives you time to see if his “making more effort” lasts, and what effect that has.

In my experience, you can regain sexual attraction. If he’s really trying to save your marriage, seriously addressing the problems (eg doing his share of housework/ childcare/ life admin so you’re not constantly exhausted, if this is one of the problems) — this could be very attractive!

Best of luck, OP.

The month time scale isn't set in stone.

If you want it to be over then tell him. Say I know we said a month but I've actually come to a decision and I don't need that amount of time.

Tell him it’s over. The ‘new man’ act rarely lasts.

Thanks all.
The affair is definitely over. It was emotional and was a long time ago, I just buried it completely and have only just started to deal with it. As has he. He has never addressed what happened, properly admitted it, looked at why, nothing, so it just sat there buried and building until I had counselling and it's all spilling out.
I have been writing lots down and figuring out my "musts" for if we continue.
I am not convinced he will have put a similar amount of effort which would reinforce the idea that he isn't really prepared to put the necessary work into saving the marriage and this current "effort" is just to appease and make the problem go away and then it'll stop and we will be back to what it was before.
It's always that sort of cycle for us, same fights over a balanced load, the difference this time is that I am prepared to separate over it which might be the push he needs, but I don't really want to end up staying as we are and then in 2 months time it all slides back to before. It has to be a permanent shift.

I think I could give it another week, then say 'look, I've done loads of thinking. There's nothing you can do that will change how I feel. I can see you are trying, which is great, but it just reminds me that for so many years you haven't tried. I can't get past the fact you've let me struggle for years, that you didn't care enough to notice and to pull your weight'.

@picklemewalnuts its like you are in my head. The ease that it feels he has "picked up" the past 2 weeks makes me a bit angry that I've shouted for help for the last 12 months and he has done very little to make things easier.
But then I see him trying and I need to remember how the past year has been and not just see the improvement now as he hasn't bothered before.

I think the fact that you're conflicted means you do need that month. I think your haste is because it feels more secure to have made a decision and you want an end to the uncertainty. But its really important that the end is the right one. And if you were as sure as you thought nothing he could do right now would be making a difference. Yes, be brave. But bravery is not always taking action. Sometimes the bravest thing is to hold fire until you know its the right action.

If resentment has set in, and it wouldn’t surprise me if it had, I don’t think that ever goes away. It fades, then bubbles up again. It’s just a cycle of resentment.

There’s a saying I like to use, and more often than not it’s right. ‘If in doubt, do nowt’.

I think that basically there is little he can do to make you feel any differently about him. If he does nothing, it confirms your misgivings. If he steps up, it confirms how little he did before. No matter how hard he tries, It sounds like you’re always going to be wondering if he’s doing it for a quiet life, rather than out of commitment to you. What would it take to make you feel that your life with him could be happy? Is he always going to be on trial? Not saying there’s not a good reason, if that’s the case, but it’s not the basis for a happy marriage. You need to have a conversation with him about this sooner, rather than at the end of the month, imo.

Thanks @5128gap and @KangarooKenny@KangarooKenny.
I think it takes a lot for me to make a move, I don't trust my own judgement, have low self esteem and tend to wish I'd made other choices in hindsight. At the time I tend to always go for the option that is least hurtful to the other person regardless of myself.
Which is why I don't think I would ever be sure of separating as I'd be very afraid of the unknown, but I think it has been on my mind intermittently for a long time.
And inside I think I might have been hoping he would be unfaithful again so that it made the decision for me.

@watcherintherye thats a good point. I have suggested that I am ready to talk earlier if he is but he seems to want to leave it as it is.
for me, the only option is couples counselling. He needs to be able to be open and honest about when he was unfaithful and be accepting of how he hasn’t pulled his weight, which I would have doubly expected after his messages with another woman.
It might be counselling assists in deciding one way or the other, but I think it’s the only option to try.
The counsellor I spoke to who is a relationship specialist said it would be good for him to go to a session or 2 first as he is not good an communicating or opening up, so if he finds he can’t invest in the process then it’s pointless and he would probably feel safer being just him to start, which makes sense to me.

I don't trust my own judgement, have low self esteem and tend to wish I'd made other choices in hindsight. At the time I tend to always go for the option that is least hurtful to the other person regardless of myself.

This stood out for me, as you are being very hard on yourself. I wondered whether you recognise that in yourself.

I'm sorry that you see it as a settled fact that you have low self esteem, rather than something you have noticed about yourself that you are thinking about how to change.

Self esteem is a hot topic, with lots being written about it.

The key thing for me is that we often think ' I have low self esteem so ... I do ...' whereas in fact the reason for the low self esteem is literally how we treat ourselves. Always putting yourself and your own needs last is pretty much the definition of low self esteem.

It's a really common feeling. We are often rewarded for being 'selfless' and generous to others. Good in its way but in real life we need a balance.

Sorry if this sounds off topic and not well explained. I'd encourage you to think about how you would treat a friend, as sister or a daughter ... and then do that for yourself. If you treat yourself at least as well as you would treat someone else, and do it as a matter of what is owed to you as a human being, you will be building up the 'muscle' of your self esteem.

Do that each time you have a decision to make. Don't expect that you will always make the right decision. Be gentle with yourself when you find that things didn't turn out as you expected or even hoped. You can know the future. You can only make the best decision you can at the time.

Find the courage to be kind to yourself. You deserve it. All the best.

You can know the future.

Of course, I meant you can not know the future.

Surely the ultimatum is: couples counselling or it's over.

Tell him that now and give him to the end of the month to think about that.

@FinallyHere it is something I have been aware of for a long time and have taken a lot of steps with various counsellors that have had limited impact. My new counsellor has been amazing though so I think I finally have a decent shot for wokeing through how I can respond in more productive ways and value myself more. Its actually what has led to the current situation.

@pompomseverywhere i have suggested counselling before and he wasn't keen at all. He eventually said "I guess I'll go if you want me to" but I'm very aware that you have to be invested in it for it to work. I said that if he didn't want to then he'd need to present an alternative, and that was it, he never came back with anything. I think he was hoping it would all be forgotten.

@VJasper86 good, I'm very glad for you.

Sorry if I’ve read it incorrectly, but the emotional affair was 7 years ago? If so, you’ve only recently found out, or you’ve known and stayed together for 7 years but it’s all come to ahead now?

@Billylilly ive known about it. I buried it. I had an 18 month old at the time so I think I was scared, I didn't really have any local support (live away from my family and best friends are all over the place) and my self esteem was quite low at that time anyway.

My counselling has really helped me identify how much of an issue it still is for me as it is something I am reminded of each year during the "anniversary" of finding out.
It has come to a head alongside the frustration I have felt over the past 12-18 months where there has been a clear and huge imbalance in our relationship to the point that our 2 year old is very adverse to spending time with daddy and he is not thinking of ways to improve that relationship, he just ignores it all.
Combined it led to me spilling my heart out, admitting how the emotional affair had broken my heart and I wasn't over it, that I wasn't happy and although I love him I am not sure if I am "in love" with him, instead of physical attraction it is more of a friendship/companion scenario.
And also that I wasn't sure if I could get that back.
I've posted about the chat we had before in that he responded with a chuckle (I think nervous chuckle as I tend to give the benefit of the doubt, but also wondered if it was more a "here she goes again" response)
He then asked for what I had written (I had prepared the things i wanted tk say) and that he would formulate a response.
That response never came and he impled he was working on it and thinking, but it transpired he wasn't and I pushed for a further chat where I cried a lot and we decided to think for a month.

When it became clear that he wasn't formulating a response to what you'd written - what did you do? If he couldn't be bothered responding to your points (I remember your previous thread) then he's not overly concerned about fixing this, is he? It sounds like he thinks it's pretty much your problem. He doesn't sound overly invested in dealing with it - not being actively involved.

You sound really lovely and honestly, better off without him.

I meant to add, I realise it's easy to say "you'd be better off without him" - but in this case, it really does sound like you would. You deserve so much more, and so much better than this. You're putting in so much effort, thinking, counselling, looking at how you'd cope if you split - and he's wasn't even overly willing to go to relationship counselling. I'm getting the distinct impression that he doesn't care much one way or the other - and I'm a stranger! God knows how you must be feeling with all the emotional entanglements!

Leave him, hard though it will be, leave him. He's not worth your time.

Oh gosh, I remember your other thread. You've been kinder to him than he deserves if I remember rightly.

Always trying to give him the benefit of the doubt @PunishmentRoundupWithJoon and @picklemewalnuts
I think I've always given him as much opportunity as I can for him to make choices and be part of decisions as I don't want to be in a marriage where I have to make him try, put effort in.
I've been probably 70/30 towards separating since the start of the month when I felt amazing having shared how I felt, but now he has started helping more I am waning and I don't want to be blinded by the effort he is putting in now, I need to be able to keep the past year in my focus as well so I have the courage to stand my ground and push for real resolutions.

Could you link to your previous thread?

I think your distress in the past was far more intense than you are describing here, and your situation is more serious. I don't think this is rescuable, and you need to stick to your guns and move things along.

Here we go.
Honestly this is dead in the water. You've been unhappy for 7 years, you've been fixing things and letting things go and glossing over problems to keep the peace. He's had several months of knowing that it's now or never, and he's done sweet FA, bar a few chores this week.

Sod the gentle reminders to be brave. Step up and sort things out.

I actually told him www.mumsnet.com/Talk/relationships/4556739-i-actually-told-him