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Leaving the house with 2 kids in tow for the second outing, post-D -Bomb, and the second outing in a row.

Smaller group this time. At a house. Same rules. No drink. Peppy conversation. Draw her in, turn away and talk to someone else. Smile on.

(I half-expect Tattoo to come running down from a bell tower -- Da WAW! Da WAW! -- while Ricardo Montalban chivvies me along with "Smiles everyone! Smiles! My dear guests: I am Mr. Rourke, your host! Welcome to Divorce Busters Island.")

Regrettably surgically-enhanced divorcee will not be in attendance, but that's good because it gives me a chance to observe her evaluating in a different milieu.

She'll be coming back from function with Divorced Friend Who Experienced Ugly Divorce and is Validating All Notions of Divorce Is Great And You Must Get One Now!

So we'll see what kind of a mood we encounter.

Right. Well time to tie up the muffler, pull up the collar on the Mac, pull down the Trilby, and head back out into the cold.

What a difference a day makes.

Second outing was quite different from first outing.

WAW arrived an hour into Second Outing, back from function with Divorced Friend.

Divorced Friend has connected WAW with Divorced Friend's Realtor -- Divorced Realtor who Specializes in WAWs -- because Divorced Friend "Just Knows" that Divorced Realtor -- who will so totally understand that WAW is in that "really hard" early stage of D -- will find WAW a Totally Awesome place that will help heal WAW's life.

I was outside talking with a very cool elderly gent who was telling tales about growing up in a tenement in NYC, with surgically-enhanced divorcee in attendance, much to my surprise. Turns out SED and I were born 12 days apart, go figure.

Anyway, WAW arrives, seemingly happy, starts chatting with the ladies. I go inside, greet her, ask how event was, then start conversation with another guy. And so it goes.

Over the course of the evening, tho, WAW's physical attitude manifests observable changes. Avoidance. When it comes to pass that we are seated near each other at table -- 5 couples, surprise, they sit with each other -- WAW ensures that her back is always partly towards me. And though we've chatted amicably during the evening, that all stops.

At the risk of over-thinking here, I think (sorry, Puppy) that it was being in a home, in the presence of these other outwardly happy couples that did it.

For one, the host couple are crazy-happy with each other -- unbelievably, T.V.-movie-like happy. And the cool elderly guy with his wife of 52 years (rock on, dude!) was still obviously in love with her, despite ups and downs (by her admission), war, sickness, poorer, richness, and health, and she was with him.

For two, they live in a neighborhood with there are lots of kids on the cul-de-sac, and other adults just come into your house with a bottle of wine (as happened later in the evening) to join the fun.

[WAW chose us a house -- big, elegant -- in a neighborhood where all the kids had grown and moved away, so we're just us here. SP didn't want the house, b.t.w, which has been a regular source of tension in the marriage during what WAW says were its declining years. SP liked the old house -- small, cramped as it was -- because it was in a neighborhood like the above.]

So WAW definitely cools out but still I chat with others, smile, and am generally a pleasant fellow. (And Sara, Sandi, and Lucky -- despite my having said "never" many, many years ago (during the Polo cologne craze of '84) I even put some smell-see-sh*t on, just to put her off her game.)

Evening ends, we collect the children, and off to the house in our respective vehicles.

I put S to bed, she put D to bed, I wished WAW a good sleep and retreated to the guest bedroom, which has become SP's Fortress of Solitude.

Or would, if I weren't constantly worried that WAW is going to bust in again. I guess modeling good behavior by knocking on the door of the (MY) master bedroom just isn't having the desired effect....

I spoke briefly with WAW this morning: How'd you sleep? Have a nice workout. And then dealt with the dog's pressing need to find a spot of grass to ruin.

Now betwixt you DB'ers and me: WAW keeps saying that she's consumed with guilt over the children, and I believe her. She keeps saying how bad she feels that she's ruining lives (her words, mind you), and I believe she does feel bad. She keeps reiterating how unhappy she is with what's happening, and I'm inclined to believe her (though I'm willing to believe there's some lilly-gilding there, too).

So why on earth does she continue to suggest that this is an either-or proposition -- either be married and miserable or divorced and free and miserable but in a position to be happy?

Though I don't bring it up, why is it that this otherwise brainy woman can't see that there is a Third Way -- stay married, work hard at it, and achieve happiness within marriage? If the work doesn't "work," there's always divorce, right? I mean, if you're that miserable now, why not accept the misery but at least have a go at seeing whether MC, Retro, etc., can end the misery within the marriage?

Pod person. Fogged-out alien pod person. And as I think about pod persons, someone correct me if I'm wrong -- don't they prevail in the movie?

SP:

I keep putting myself in your W's shoes. I keep thinking that she's win-back-able, but that you have to crash through her wall to get her to talk with you about her dreams and to convince her that she can have her dreams right where she sits.

You started sleeping in another room before the D talk, right? If that's true, then she was sleeping every night in your master bedroom wondering why you weren't crashing in to hold her and kiss her and love her. She was wondering what kind of man would allow that? What kind of man wouldn't give her what she wishes for?

I'm sorry I keep going back to passion. I worry that your proud, principled, and dignified nature keeps you from giving her the big show, heart-on-your-sleeve, profession of undying love she needs to stop the D. She keeps threatening you with, "maybe I should serve you tomorrow." If it truly were "too late," she WOULD serve you yesterday.

We all know what's in your head. We have heard you say that you want HER over anyone else in the world. We see how hard you are working to win her love. But, can she really see it?

I can't help but wish that you would try to connect with her.

Just read yesterday: We all turn to our friends and tell them everything. When we begin a R, we make that person our best friend. Somewhere along the line, we start turning to our friends more than our mate. What we really need to do is make our mate our very best friend. THAT is intimacy.

I think she wavers between dreaming of a sunny future with someone else and her love for you. Can't you just tell her that she is your one and only and that a sunny future CAN be yours?

If you stay completely measured in every step, maybe it won't be enough for her. It'll leave room for some random guy will love her with reckless abandon, and she'll feel so satisfied when that happens. (Until it doesn't work out.) Why let it get to that point without a real try?

There I go with my desperate plea again.

Once more, I don't want to ruin all the hard work you've done. I'm no expert.

I don't agree with your W's actions at all. For the most part, I think her D threat is just that. A threat. What is the X in "Do X or else"? Passion and connection and openly flowing love.

Thoughts?

Lucky, aka Agent 55

55: As always, really good thoughts and insights. If only I could believe.



Lucky, it's not as simple as that. I started sleeping in the other room because I get up at 2:30 or 3 a.m. to work with colleagues over the computer on the other side of the world. But I need -- and have -- a really loud alarm clock. So my sleeping outside the master bed was a way of not waking her up -- she's one of these people who MUST have her sleep.

We both recognize that, despite its necessity and good intentions (the road to hell and all), that was a fatal step. She acknowledged yesterday a.m. that it made her feel abandoned; I told her that I felt abandoned, too, but I didn't see how to balance the need for work with her need for sleep. Just one of those stupid things.

Now we did have a "date night," if you know what I mean, but in the months leading up to D-bomb there were lots of excuses made -- tired, don't feel well, etc.

Now is she up there wondering why I don't come bounding in like the cover of a Barbara Cartland novel? Maybe. Or maybe not.

I got the D-bomb 12 hours after returning from an overseas business trip (all part of my sitch description that went into the cold -- perhaps I'll have to do a recap). She decided on delivering the bomb on/about 31 January, while on a trip with her girlfriends to Europe. So when I left for my business trip on 5 February, she already knew -- her friends already knew -- but I didn't know.

As to my feelings -- I must confess I'm deeply conflicted, here.

I read in DR that I'm not supposed to say ILY, etc.; DB Coach doesn't want me to say ILY, etc.; expressions of desire, etc., are said to be pursuing behavior, which will push her out the door and into arms of OM whom she hasn't spoken to in 2 weeks (because he's out of the country) but who she status-checks on Facebook [N.B. to WAWs -- stay off our computers, for god's sake, or at least delete the browser history!!) every day.

Is D a threat or not? She says it's not. She says she doesn't believe that's something you threaten -- in her words, "you only say it if you're prepared to do it."



Sometimes I think this. On the other hand, WAW is an intensely practical person -- you don't get to where she's at professionally, in her specialty, any other way. We have a really complicated financial picture -- lots of separate, inherited property (land, homes, mines -- the lot) -- and have agreed not to start the process until the kids' school year ends, so there's that aspect. She's definitely not a heat-of-the-moment kind of person. So on that issue I'm agnostic -- it could mean something, it could mean nothing.

It's true, however, that once I started acting as-if -- like when I insisted we book the date with S9's therapist to break the news to the kids -- she got a bit shocked, I think. (Way to go Michele.)

When surgically-enhanced divorcee was obviously "just that into" me, she noticed and even pointed it out the next day -- wow, SED sure was into you. (And as you know, Lucky, for many women no man is more attractive than the man other women find attractive -- it's like the intra-gender stamp of approval.)

But IF -- and I think at this point this is a purely hypothetical IF (I'll have to defer to Portland and Puppy for commentary on this) -- she still harbors some residual....(something)....for SP, it's obviously conflicting with her (at least mental) commitment to D.

There's some discussion in DR about face-saving, but not a lot, but I've seen it in other forums, especially the book Negotiating Past No.

Don't know how, IF that IF is the case, I could manage that while allowing her to save face. I almost think that Best Girl Friend would have to make the suggestion first, don't you, because that would be advice that "only has her best interests in mind"?

What I don't want to do -- and this is me -- is jeopardize my hard-earned DB gains, ESPECIALLY my as-if and loving detachment, which has really become comfortable for me in the past few days, on a crap shoot -- and come up snake-eyes.

I hear ya, SP. I agree - I don't want to see any detriment in your situation, either. You've been doing so great and you seem to have a sound perspective on all aspects of your situation.

I hope those financial complexities (ahem... "mines"???) buy enough time for her to have an awakening and do a turnaround!

55

Thanks Lucky. Yeah, mines. Not producing anything, but mines nonetheless.

I split the difference on your recommendation. During a talk that SHE introduced, I did the appropriate detached talking -- short, to the point, not brusque or rude.

She had a long run this a.m. and overdid it and came back to the house limping. I told her that it was silly to work out so much and should have called -- the kids and I would have picked her up that far away.

"No, I couldn't do that. For one, I have too much pride. And I made this decision, and I'm on my own now. So I have to deal with living on my own."

I suggested yes, fine, you made the decision, you're on your own, but let's be realistic -- you don't do yourself any good by overdoing it beyond the point of injury. So next time be less prideful and call.

"Well, I can't. And I won't."

Okay. You'll do what's best for you.

"I'm just too proud."

SO. Okay now. She's said that 3 times. Deep breath. Even tone, stead eyes, SP: "I understand that. Pride is a tough thing to deal with at times. And you'll do what's right for you. For my part, I'm done letting pride make my decisions for me. And as far as it goes, the kids and I are happy to lend a hand when it's needed -- so if you need to reach out, don't be afraid. Someone will be there."

And so she started to cry, just a little bit, and made a bit of an attempt to hide it.

So I pushed it, just a little bit: "Let's just leave it at that. Someone can be there if you need it -- the door's not closed."

Disengage, go break up fight between kids over which character in Mario Kart is better.

So we'll see. I laid down a bit of marker. Whether she picks it up or not, or even gives it a second thought -- that's something that exists in The Fog.

For my part, I'm off to the movies.

Pod person. Our router crashed, but only on the wireless broadcast, so I set up a temporary workspace for WAW in my office with an ethernet connection.

She's sitting there keyboarding, I'm sitting there keyboarding on the opposite side of the office.

"So what did your girlfriend have to say last night?" (Obviously means surgically-enhanced divorcee.)

Hah-hah. Very funny.

"I know you're going to have girlfriends, but I don't want to know about them. I mean, there's friends and then there's friends."

(So she's actually serious about this.) I understand -- completely. And you're absolutely right. I won't want to know about your, um, 'friends,' either. (Back to keyboarding.)

There won't be any 'friends.' (Crying a bit now.) I just keep wondering how we let this happen.

(WE ???) Though she's acknowledged that it takes two to tango once or twice before, this is the first time "WE" let this happen.

I don't know. I mean, I think all the reasons we've said. But...

(And rather than push, I just left it there.)

Pod person. Pod-pod-pod-pod-pod-pod-pod person. Each day that passes she gets more and more like my wife. But the things that come out of her mouth are straight from planet Bizzaro.

Pods, man.

Yes - and there's lots more to come no doubt...

For an indication as to how far behind you are, if you haven't had it pointed out to you before, look up Smartcookies now infamous post...

Smiley - you're way way way behind...your W is likely way in front of you in terms of thinking...when you can close that gap - you are making some headway.

Closing the gap = real changes in you (and not shouting about it) + creating doubt in her - you wont be able to do anything about the latter - work on the former....

Best - GFI

Tough conversation. I could see where that would tear you up. She's bound to run into you with a girlfriend one day if she goes through with divorce. That's something she has to consider. Mine said to me the other day that it would probably kill her to see me w/ someone else, yet she still persists w/ the same course of action. So, yes you are correct sir, pod people. So damn frustrating when all you want to do is keep your family together and live your life happily with the woman that you love. Sigh, keep your chin up. At least she's still in the same house. Remember, ever encounter is an opportunity to influence her!

GFI2: How can we find "Smartcookie's now infamous post"?

Thanks,
Lucky