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This may ending being long, but what the heck..I don't post much any more and I wanted to get this out while it was fresh.

Although it probably won't be verbatim....had a pretty interesting conversation with my wife last night....let's call it the most recent "reminder talk of where this is all headed".

Think I handled myself very well, and the funny thing is...especially after spinning a bit about Valentine's Day, and how long this limbo has gone on...last night and this morning I am chuckling to myself about all this. It is going to be a beautiful, sunny 60* day...I am taking a half day from work...and I am thoroughly enjoying my "why the f**k should I even sweat it any more" attitude.

First...on average, the reminders come along about every 2 months..last one was at the end of last year, so I knew I was due.

Through all of this, I have told her I do not need the reminders, and she has maintained that the reason she allows us to be so close, have fun and enjoy ourselves so much...is because of that...I tell her I know what's coming, and she trusts that I get it.

She doesn't bring it up much, neither do I...and we live our lives 98% of the time as a happily married couple....including ML, although that has slowed a bit lately. That usually happens prior to the reminders.

I'm pretty sure if I looked for it...there is a pretty consistent pattern going on for the last 8 or 10 months.

Last night was my late night...wife and her friend were at the house chatting and having a drink. As so often happens..(male)friends of the friend tend to find her and follow along...my wife and I call them her "posse"...one or two, one again off again boyfriends and a couple young guys that tagged along.

Wife sent me a text to warn me..."just wanted to let you know, friend's posse found her...we are just hanging out having some beers"....not ecstatic about the idea, but I know a couple of the guys, so it really was not a big deal.

When I got home, I went to the bedroom to change and wife followed me in...came up to me and put her arms around me and asked if I was mad....said she didn't want me to think there was anything "funny" going on with all these guys in the house...friend asked if it was OK if they came over and she didn't want to be rude.

I laughed and said...wife..at this point in time, you would need your head examined if you were still trying to hide something like that from me...and in the grand scheme of things, with all that we have been through and where we are headed...I'm not so sure it would matter an awful lot to me.

So...maybe I was slightly annoyed at coming home to find my wife, her friend and 4 dudes in the house...LOL.

She looked at me with a little, hurt puppy dog look....I laughed it off..told her to be quiet and let's go have a beer.

So, we all drank some beers...laughed, talked and actually had a pretty good night. One of the guys I had never met was a car nut so we talked cars...wife's friend did her usual flirting around the room, which usually ends with me and her telling me how much she loves me...thinks I'm sexy...blah, blah, blah. Obviously she has no idea what I really think of her.

They were all gone by 10:30 - 11 and my wife and sat and talked in the kitchen while we finished our last beer.

Let's call this part 1....this is getting longer than I thought it would.

Continued below.

How often to her reminders correspond with her hanging out with that chick?

They don't really...in the beginning, right after the bomb she spent a lot of time with her...going out and partying, hanging out at her house.

My wife has backed off on that a lot, and they still go once in great while, but back then I believe she was enjoying the freedom...hanging with the single chick..bar hopping, etc, but in between, it was wife and I doing the same thing and having a blast, so I let her get it out of her system...which she seemed to do.

She is actually my sister-in-law's younger sister, and they are kind of like the Three Musketeers..(stooges??).

They all drink too much, stay out too late when they are together..some times it's just them, others it's a bunch of us.

I don't care much for her only because she is pretty much a tramp and an alcoholic..no H and 2 kids that she will pawn off on whoever will take them..etc.

My wife and SIL may do their share of partying, but have their priorities straight.

Still working on part 2, but at work and leaving early..and the box at home is dead. Down, I think you, of all people, might appreciate the conversation after everyone left last night.

Part 2...see part 1, above.

As the chatting went on, wife once again wanted to make sure I wasn't mad about the evening..which I truly was not...but I did ask her a question.

I was just curious how she would have reacted to coming home and finding me and one of my friends at the house drinking with some girls....a couple of them being young, cute and available??

She said..she didn't think she would have liked it very much, and that is why she let me know they were there and made sure I wasn't mad about it....but she did think it was different because they were young guys, and regardless of the sitch, she would have no interest. Seems it would be different for me to be around young attractive women....double standard, I guess??

That part of the talk, brought out a little sarcasm in me and once again, I pretty much said what does it all matter, anyway.

Wife says..I guess..with where all this is going, I suppose it doesn't, but like I said..just didn't want you to think bad of me.

I said that as far as I knew we were still under our original agreement from the start of this...no other people..physically or emotionally..period. If you still feel the same way you did a year ago, and this is headed in the direction that you continue to say it is...then we certainly don't need to hide anything from each other.

She agreed, but assured me that there has been no one else, there is no one else and there is no interest, physically or emotionally that I have to be concerned about.

Could not resist some more sarcasm, and told her there was no one that she should be concerned about, but your business is your business...where ever we are headed.

She asked if this was really a conversation we needed to have now, and I asked what she was talking about. That is where the reminder talk came in and although I don't remember word for word there was some points she made...not much different than previous statements from her.

One was "I still can't say I love you", to which I said..you love me but you are not in love with me?...yes.

She said I have always told you that I love, will always love you and always want you to be a part of my life, and me yours....I asked what she meant by "part of each other's lives".

She said we have a daughter together and I said yes, but she will be 20 this year...we won't be sharing custody...maybe we can plan the wedding together. She did not appreciate my sarcasm.

I said before we go any farther...the "I love you but" you just said. I told her I know I have told you before through all of this, but I just wanted you to know a few things...

First, I know words can't make up for what I put you through in our marriage, but I am sorry. She said a know you are.

Second, I love you and no matter how it seemed, I was always in love with you and I am sorry that I didn't know how to show you.

Third...given the chance, I would spend the rest of my life making it up to you, but if I don't get that chance I understand.

Her response was....not word for word...even if I could remember, this is getting too long.

What we have had this past year has been great...for the first time in our marriage, I feel at home here with you, but I don't see us as H&W in the future.

You were never my best friend through our marriage...in the last year you have become my best friend...we talk, we laugh...we have had more good times in the last year than in the last 20(how sad is that?).

The things we do and share have brought us closer than we have ever been, but...I can't see us together in the future, even though I am comfortable here with you and don't feel there is a rush to end this....and again...she wants us to always be a part of each other's lives...because we are "best friends"...she doesn't want her best friend to walk out the door and never see him again.

I told her that when this is all done, I am not so sure that I would be able to continue being "best friends"...To which I got a very surprised look. She asked if I meant that it was "all or nothing?...either married or not friends at all?"

I told her not exactly, but you just said you have spent the last year getting closer to me and letting me become your best friend, and to some extent that is also true for me...but...

This past year, as we got close and became "best friends", I was also convincing myself that I could get through this, be apart from you...detach myself from the relationship and move on.

I want nothing more for us to be together and for you to realize some day that we have a chance, but I can't hang on to that hope forever....remaining best friends, or even good friends...would make me hold that hope too close.

***
Have to continue again.

And I think I would have told her...

"That's alright darling. Because I can see it. And I'll keep seeing it for the both of us as long as I have to."


Now, back to your posts. Sorry for the interuption.


Bill

Time is on your side. If you can keep hanging in there, I think it will work out. If all was bad for 20 yrs, why should 1 year fix it? You could look at it as, she doesn't appear to be going anywhere, you last year has been the best in 20, seems like an upward trend to me. No matter how anyone tries to look at this in a beer half empty sort of way, it appears you are headed in the right direction.

Be careful with the sarcasm. I am king of sarcasm but sometimes things go over her head, or she doesn't get it and then I just seem mean. I suspect you might the same issue.

Quite alright...lol..sorry to leave you hanging, the computer at home was still out this weekend.


That conversation..which I will get back to...really gave me the "beer half full" feeling for some reason this time.

Maybe it was her saying she was comfortable, we had become best friends, etc... and saw no reason to just boot me out the door.

I have lived the past year under the assumption that she is healing, letting the past go and becoming my friend again. Maybe not falling in love with me..I know that I can't count on that..but it seems that what she said that night, in some ways, confirms that.

There have been times over the months when she has said things were not terrible..that we were still friends through the years..but it really surprised me to hear her say that we have become best friends this past year.

In the end, I still am very confused as to where she thinks this is all going...and that was the gist of the rest of the talk...about us being part of each other's lives.

Part 3...coming in a few.

I understand the sarcasm (duh ;P)...but what I notice, nds, is that you keep saying you "truly" were not mad..but then you mention being sarcastic several times, the whole convo was sarcastic, and her not appreciating it.

I will say that most people don't mind sarcasm as much as minding it when someone says they aren't mad and then are sarcastic.

Go ahead and BE mad, nds!! Anyone would be mad. Just own it.

Breakaway...she gets my sarcasm for the most part...and the funny thing about the talk that night is that it was light.

Very serious subject, but we have been at this so long now and had almost this exact conversation so many times that this time was different.

There were a couple of spots when we both got a little emotional, but I surprised myself, and her I think, with the "what the f**k does it matter at this point" attitude.

As far as me actually being mad...maybe, maybe not. When she texted me to say they were all at the house, I might have been a little pissed..but you know, me being pissed about something like that is the old me and I had talked myself out of it by the time I got home.

She has mentioned my behavior in the past and how if I was put in that position of coming home to house full of people...friends or her family...I could be pretty rude.

It's her home, too...it's one of her best friends(regardless of my opinion of her)..the dudes that were there were good guys.

Her asking me several times, and almost wanting to be reassured that I was not upset about it tells me not being mad was the right thing to do.

The sarcasm and wise cracks are me, and they were not really meant to hurt her or get a rise...some she got and laughed about, others may have annoyed her a bit. I actually notice over these past months that tries to get right into with me...something she never used to do.

I hear what you are saying...be mad..let it out. I did that for 20 years...it ruined my marriage.

I didn't say let it out, I said admit it. See this I fear is the flip side of trying to change some of that stuff. You said you were pissed, but then you "decided" not to be, because you're somehow not allowed to be mad about anything now.

The thing is...what upset your wife, was things like that making you mad, fairly or unfairly I can't judge, but you acted on it by being rude to people and embarrassing her or shaming her or whatever. Now, in order to be different, you say you're not mad.

I submit, nds, she needed all that reassurance and asked you THREE times because she could TELL you were mad. And then, while convincing yourself you were not mad you responded with sarcasm. So..instead of being aggressive, you're being passive-aggressive. You say it was light...well..it doesn't sound like it.

Of course I could be totally misreading it...I can only go off my own experience. But my husband will go through "I'm going to change and not be an [censored]" thing and he's just going to decide not to get mad, but of course, he still is. And it comes out in digs and in sarcasm.

Maybe the thing isn't to not get mad, it's to learn how to deal with angry feelings. It's dealing with anger, not just...not getting angry.

Am I rambling? lol I am just thinking out loud.