This is something that I am also chewing on. HellFire recently posted something that really resonated with me. I'm paraphrasing, but it was something like: There are some things that we will never be able to get over, but R can still be successful.
It's been 19 years for me, and I think that I have very successfully R'ed, but there are things that are still very painful that I can't put to rest. I started IC because I wanted to get over them, but maybe they're just not get-overable. Maybe I just have to learn to deal with feelings when they pop up.
The biggest thing for me isn't even infidelity related. My H left me alone in the hospital when my oldest DD was born. She was a preemie and I was recovering from a C-section, and he wasn't there. I needed him to help me take showers and hold her and things like that, but instead I was alone and in desperate need of a shower when friends came to visit. I was mortified. He had time off because of the birth, but he didn't spend it with me and the baby. He spent it with his military buddies at my house, partying. Instead of a peaceful homecoming with our new daughter, I came home to a houseful of strangers, smoking and drinking in my living room, after we had stopped smoking in the house for many months due to her impending arrival. Something fundamental changed that day, and I don't think I'll ever be who I was before that enormous hurt. To this day, when he admires the beauty of a pregnant woman, it does nothing but piss me off.
So, anyway - I get it. I also feel like I'm the problem when I get upset about not being able to work through the hurt he caused me 34 years ago. He is not who he was then, and our marriage is better than it's ever been, but I'll probably never get over that. There are no do-overs on bringing home your first baby. There's no way to take back 7 years. But the relationship today can still be warm and close and healthy.
[This message edited by SacredSoul33 at 8:37 PM, Thursday, September 21st]
Remove the "I want you to like me" sticker from your forehead and place it on the mirror, where it belongs. ~ Susan Jeffers
Your nervous system will always choose a familiar hell over an unfamiliar heaven.