He is not ready to work on our marriage

I have done some extensive reading on reconciliation after infidelity has occurred in a marriage. I know it takes both people in a marriage to make it work. If only one is working, while the other is just going along for the ride, the marriage will never survive, much less heal.

During a short conversation today, H mentioned that he just wants to put all this behind us and move on. He no longer wants to talk about it anymore. When I heard this, that painful feeling came crashing back like it did the day I found out. It felt as though we have not progressed that much in the last (almost) six months.

He doesn’t even believe he needs to heal from this just as much as I do. In fact, he says he can put this all behind him and move on without healing. How can he believe that he doesn’t have anything to heal from? Maybe he’s just trying to bury the problem. What he doesn’t realize, is that he cannot bury this like he does with every other problem in his life. He normally applies a band-aid hoping it never gets wet and falls off, because then, he will have to either apply another or treat the cut. As far as the marriage is concerned, he says it will heal itself. Hearing him say this, sounded like he believes that the marriage is a third person.

At one point in the conversation, he tells me “I will make you forget the pain”, as though I had fell down and scrapped my knee.

I replied, “Once a person experiences this type of pain, they never forget. How can you move forward each and every day looking into my eyes, seeing the pain there and not doing anything to help minimize it?”

Of course, he had no reply. He had a cold look on his face. So cold in fact that it sent chills up and down my spine. This type of facial expression was crystal clear in the early days after I found out. Now it looks like it has returned.

After all this, I realized that he is not ready to work on healing this marriage. He is not ready to get back on the road and walk along side me. So for now, all I can do is wait. For how long? I do not know. What I do know is that I am exhausted from holding this marriage together over the last couple of years and I know that this cannot go on for much longer. For me, waiting means its time to back off and see what happens. In the process, I will buy some time for myself and make a backup plan.

What puzzles me the most, is the fact that it has been one year since the physical affair ended and almost six months since the communication stopped. He should know what he wants by now. This is an easier situation for him, then that of other men who are in between two women and have to make a choice. For H there is only me or his freedom. I don’t know if he is buying time, just being this way intentionally to make me suffer more or honestly doesn’t know what he really wants. Whatever it is, he will not say when asked, which leaves me in limbo.