Full Disclosure

...is absolutely necessary for me to go forward with reconciliation after his affair.  My husband had been reluctant to do this.  We have spoken at length about the affair.  He says he will speak with me about it when I need to, but lately he only seems to want to discuss the points he wants to discuss.  He reached a point several weeks ago where he was unwilling to speak about the affair itself anymore, saying we needed to leave the past alone and concentrate on the future.  The problem is that an innocent comment can trigger me to relive the past eight months and then focus on a particular aspect of the affair.  For example, we went out to lunch and I wanted to take a selfie of us and he refused.  Why did he take pictures with her and refuse to take one with me?  He said he looked sloppy, his beard was too long and gray and he didn't want to take a picture.  I pushed, he got frustrated and we ended up in an argument. 

I found an article the other day called Understanding Your Loyal Spouse. While there were a few aspects of the article that I felt went a little over the top, I could relate to most of the content.  

The article stated that betrayed spouses relive the affair over and over and sometimes will repeatedly ask the same questions. This is a mechanism which assists in processing the betrayal. I am a question asker.  I want details. I need full disclosure in order to keep my imagination in check. 

Another of the points I identified with was how keeping feelings bottled up eventually results in emotional explosions.  Guilty on both counts.

He is an extremely logical person while I run on 99% emotion, and on Monday there was an emotional explosion. Nonetheless, I was able to combine the emotional outburst with logic and convince him to read the article over breakfast.  He went through point by point with me and I was able to convey how I felt he wasn't giving me what I needed from him to successfully put the affair behind.  I told him I could go to 100 psychiatrists and take 10 different anxiety medications, but without him giving me what I needed to put this behind us, it would be a waste of time.  He actually agreed with me.  

He provided me with the details I asked for.  What did they do? Where did he take her? And for the first time since October, I actually felt like he wasn't hiding anything anymore.  

Although we have been working on our relationship for the past five months, I felt as though he was not totally trustworthy, he was still hiding information.  He finally answered all my questions.  I have no unanswered details to speculate over.  I now believe we can fully move forward.