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General :
The Cost of Poor Listening

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hikingout ( member #59504) posted at 4:21 PM on Friday, September 4th, 2026

What unhinged wrote is what I see as well.

You keep thinking we are filtering it through our lens, through your husbands lens. And I mean you are right, I am not sure how humans can abstain from that especially through anonymous contact in the internet.

I have agreed with your entire plan, all I have asked you to do is now adjust that plan with your husbands lens in mind

You are not showing empathy when you present your plan. This is where demonstrating accountability of your affair matters most.

By approaching him after enforcing these new boundaries, you are showing him, I am consistently not going to have unhealthy communication with you but I still love you. You can simply say "Have you had a chance to process and is there anything at all you want to discuss. I am always happy to do that as long as the communication is healthy."

But yes, I think when you walk away from you should at least come back for the repair the rupture from the affair—-and that is his inability to be vulnerable with you right now because he questions your love/motivations for staying.

I know it’s very difficult to balance the type of personal healing you are doing with reconciliation. I have tried to give some very simple tasks how you can do that without unintentionally making his fears worse.

I am not sure I have anything else I can give you. I see you, I can’t make you believe I see you. I have been you in many ways, I do not assert in most ways or all ways, but I understand you better than you believe I do, and I care more than you think I do or I wouldn’t keep showing up when you keep kicking my ass.

[This message edited by hikingout at 4:45 PM, Friday, September 4th]

WS and BS - Reconciled

Mine 2017
His 2020

posts: 8856   ·   registered: Jul. 5th, 2017   ·   location: East coast
id 8904833
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sisoon ( Moderator #31240) posted at 4:42 PM on Friday, September 4th, 2026

You reject out of hand the facts that 1) we respond to what YOU write, 2) if we misunderstand, it's probably because YOU do not write what you think you do, and 3) perhaps you're not interpreting the responses you get accurately.

After all, if so many of US don't hear YOU, it's possible that the problem lies with the one contributor who is common to all the miscommunication.

And human beings - all of us, and you're included - cannot help but filter what we perceive through our experience. That's the best anyone can do.

To heal, I believe we - BSes and WSes alike - have to question everything we think - about the world, life, ourselves. You're some of that. You're also holding on to some thinking that isn't helping you.

fBH (me) - on d-day: 66, Married 43, together 45, same sex ap
d-day - 12/22/2010 Recover'd and R'ed
You don't have to like your boundaries. You just have to set and enforce them.

posts: 32220   ·   registered: Feb. 18th, 2011   ·   location: Illinois
id 8904836
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