I've got a veritable army of help in my recovery. I have a therapist that I've been seeing for years, to help me with other issues. Anger management, Anxiety, PTSD from my childhood abuse, and several close brushes with death as a kid. I have an EMDR therapist that is guiding me through the trauma of my wife's infidelity. We have a couples counselor and she's done H4H and I have done HH and we are in EMSO together.

Our story is pretty convoluted, and I don't wish to go into detail on your blog, but you can find it in the forums. In a nutshell it involves me making a failed attempt to turn her cheating into an open relationship (talk about denial on my part!) and 7 months of trickle truth and deception after the affair ended. Her last acting out was in December, and the most recent, and hopefully final disclosure was on March 18 of this year. She also had another affair 17 years ago.

Letting go of control has been the single hardest thing for me. Because in doing so, I have to recognize that there is literally nothing I can do to keep her from cheating again. I am absolutely powerless to make our marriage whole and faithful unless she makes the decisions to do so on her own part. That means that she could potentially do things that cause me to have to say enough is enough, and I don't want that. So I try to control. One of my therapists says that is very common in Adult Children of Alcoholics. I'm seeing a lot of those traits in me now that I am learning about that phenomenon.

I really need to see my wife sharing on the forums, or with our EMSO group. She is very private about her recovery. She shares with her H4H group I think, but I don't know because I don't read her things. She says she is doing everything she can do. And she is working and I can see it. I just don't understand her lack of desire to share and seek help from the community, and honestly it scares me. If she does that, then I can see whats going on, and be reassured. But her saying "Im working on everything I can do, and going to therapy, and doing my class" doesn't really make me feel any safer. She promised me during her months of relapse that she was all in with us. And again when she was somewhat ambivalent that she was all in when in reality she wasn't.

We argued the other day and she said in a negative way to me "you think its all about you. That everything in recovery is all about you" - I don't understand how her deciding to help me and our marriage but only doing so on her own terms is going to help. It makes me feel like she still doesn't truly get it. I believe that she has too much pride to ever let herself hit the bottom. She'll hang on until the bitter end, never allowing herself to give in. I think her heart is generally in the right place, and I really do believe that she wants our marriage to succeed and to be great. I just wonder how she can truly make the real changes needed without ever hitting the bottom, and constantly hanging on to her pride and control of life.

I get in these bad places, then go to her and apologize for my own behavior. Another ACoA trait - feeling guilty when standing up for yourself and not giving in to others.