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I don't know if I am overreacting or not but this is so hard!

We are 9 months since DDay and I have clearly layed out what I need/want in our relationship. I have told him what would help me heal. In a lot of ways, he has been doing exactly as he should - i.e. never defensive, read books, went to therapy, etc. However, there are areas that he is just flat out falling short. One of his plans/promises for healing and to help me was to attend therapy. However, he hasn't gone to therapy for months now. He would always tell me "I don't plan to ever stop" but here we are - as soon as things were started to get better between us and he got a little busy with work and house stuff, he stopped going. I have voiced to him over and over that I have a fear that once time passes, he will get comfortable and just go back to the way everything was and he will utlimately cheat again (hes a serial cheater). This is triggering to me and now he has stopped going. I asked him about it and he told me that he had some dates in mind to go to a therapist but didn't have anything really planned. I told him how disappointed I was and got upset. He made it seem like he understood and still nothing. I haven't heard if he has or hasn't made an appt and I feel like if I have to keep asking him and prompting him, he isn't taking his own control over his healing.
I have also told him that I need to see action. Because he would say things like he loved me and whatever and still cheat on me, I have told him his words feel cheap. He took this literally and stopped saying "I love yous" and besides planning a date in the future, couldn't come up with anything to show me. I tried to explain it as you can't just say "i love you" and expect me to believe it without having actions to back it up.

I feel like I have spelled out what I need to him and shouldn't have to babysit him. His recovery in this is supposed to be his. I need him to show up and be consistent but i dont feel like he is showing that. I need him to show me the changes he is making not necessarily just tell me what he is going to do. He shows up when he feels the pressure or things are rough but when he gets busy or things are going better, he starts to slide back again.

Trying I hear you. My spouse is similar. I used to hear his words and believe them. If he said it I believed it. Now I don’t.

I don’t have much advice but I hear you. And over time you may find you see more of his flaws (I have) and find the flaws unattractive.

I sometimes see my husband as a moody teenager. It’s a bad look for a grown adult.

You aren’t over reacting. You may have been quite low maintenance as a partner ( I was - I was self sufficient and not easy to offend). Now I question everything and don’t assume he is operating by my standards. So I clarify.

Well I did but slowly, three years later, I’m giving up.

I lean very strongly to asking for what you want instead of telling people what you want.

If you ask, and he says 'yes,' he's more likely to keep doing what you ask. If he says 'No' to too many requests, you'll know he may not be a good partner to you in any case.

Also, I very strongly recommend making specific requests. Suppose your W reads books on infidelity to find out how to fake R? Is that OK?

My reco is to set observable requirements for R, the main one being 'change from betrayer to good partner.' (Also ask him how he plans to do that.) Ask for No Contact with the ap - that's observable.

Answering questions is observable. Does it matter if he's defensive when he answers? Over time, yes, but at first an honest answer may be enough. Learning to drop defensiveness is a task for him to do, and therapy can help, but it's up to him to learn to drop defensiveness. 'No more lies' is observable over time.

Therapy can be a useful requirement, but I required changing from cheater to good partner be one of my W's therapy goals.

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I guess I'm recommending a reframing of R. IMO, the BS sets the requirements for themself, and the WS sets requirements for themself. If the requirements don't fit well together, maybe it's best to decide R is the wrong solution.

That's why asking is IMO a good idea. It recognizes that each partner can say 'no' to a request if they want to. It allows each partner to know what to expect.

I think you have every reason to be concerned.

True change only happens because the person who needs to do that work, wants to do it.

One might say, isn’t keeping your marriage enough to want to make the changes? And I would say probably for lot of people.

However, some ws do not believe they will lose anything. And even if they do believe they might, it may not be a strong enough motivating factor to overcome the fear of facing themselves.

I will say that I went in and out of therapy because there were periods that I needed to integrate what I was learning about myself. I went for months, and then would break for months. This can be effective, but I think your husband would be able to explain the purpose of there was one for him.

However- here would be some reasonable pause points. I figured out how I got to the point of cheating and what I was looking for in that experience. I was able to articulate that and what it was that I was practicing/integrating. Then, I would go back and kind of do another dump of what I was learning and experiencing and we would start on the new stuff.

My motivation for changing was that I didn’t want to be the person I had become. I wanted to find a more peaceful way of being, and I didn’t want to use self destructive coping mechanisms anymore. I am not saying that to give myself a gold star, I will always be a work in progress even though I feel I have healed and have become more self aware. It’s just this is the language you want to hear. It’s always good if they also want to learn to be a better spouse, but the feeling should they are going to therapy because they need to make a change and are self motivated.

All this to say, even if you can get him to therapy, he has to want these things for himself. Otherwise, he is just serving time, rather than finding personal benefit. Checking a box. This stuff takes digging, dedication, practice. He may see it as simpler than that, often male cheaters kind of treat affairs as "extra sex" and feel they can forego it. But often cheating has far deeper roots than that - whether he is capable of examining these things is something you will have to try and objectively gauge.

What you have to decide instead is where your boundaries are going to be and how you will protect them. I do not mean rules, more what you can and can’t accept and how you will protect yourself from further trauma, disappointment and chaos. This is what Sissoon is sort of getting at. The only part you can control is yourself. I do not think ws need to go to therapy forever, but some of the lack of change shows me he is still deeply avoidant, probably over confident.

Here are some other signs that you can kind of gauge- does he welcome conversations about his affairs or is he defensive? Does he answer all your questions? Does he try and be transparent and is he able to anticipate things that may be triggering to you? Any signs he is less avoidant? Does he do anything towards ammends?

[This message edited by hikingout at 4:45 PM, Wednesday, June 18th]

I've posted my history elsewhere but if there are basic things that he is not meeting, that's a serious problem in my book. I did not require my WS to go to IC. I'm not sure why and I probably should have. At this point things have improved to where it probably isn't needed. Phone, location, contact with AP all were fair game in terms of physical things and if those were met with difficulty (they weren't), I think I would have a serious problem with that. Second to that would be the "softer" skill things that I myself am learning: Helping you through triggers, learning to recognize when you need/want support vs. alone, etc.

Honestly, if I were to be second guessing any of that well into R (you need to decide what that threshold is) I would seriously be considering other options otherwise I fear you'll be disappointed especially with a serial cheater