We had planned a ski vacation to Lake Tahoe about 2 months before she told me she didn’t love me, and has not loved me in a long time. Well, we went to a top end resort, didn’t worry about what we spent. We did everything we wanted to. We all had a great time, wife included. In fact, I think it made her think a little about what she wants to leave – although I know that nothing fundamental has yet changed in her mind. Since we were there for Valentine’s Day, I bought 3 small boxes of chocolate for my 3 girls before leaving. I know the rule about “no gifts” but I thought I would look like a jerk to not give her anything. I decided to just give her a card. In the card I wrote, “you’re a beautiful and good women. I wish you could be happy … without hurting me”. Buying the gifts for the girls was a 180 for me, since my wife usually does those things. It was even better because in her MLC she has been neglecting our girls somewhat being preoccupied with herself and just being selfish. She remarked about this, so I know she noticed. I gave out the presents in the morning, after giving her the card, I went to the bathroom to clean up. When I came back into the room, I could see she had tears in her eyes, and she thanked me and started kissing me. We then ML in the bathroom while my girls were watching morning cartoons. Even though we were on vacation together, I tried to create distance. We went with another family, and on day 1 while the rest of my family was in lessons I skied alone or our friends. We weren’t always together. When she was in one of the shops looking at clothes, normally I would follow her around since I have little interest in shopping. Instead I would walk away and not follow her. Another 180 is I no longer ask, “where do you want to eat.” Instead each night I would just say come let’s go eat, and I picked the restaurant. One last thing. I’ve said that my wife is in a MLC and this trip added more confirmation. We have not gone skiing in 20 years. In fact, one reason is my wife was never into sports and didn’t like it (the other reason is we moved to Florida). Instead of skiing, my wife wanted to try snowboarding. The reason is that skiing is not “extreme” enough to satisfy her. The funny thing is that she had to quit the snow-boarding lessons early because she fell really hard on her ass, after falling all day on her ass. She was bruised on her tail bone and took Motrin the rest of the week while skiing. Overall, I think the vacation was a success. My children enjoyed it, and in the back of my head I think it could well be our last vacation as a complete family. I also see it as a success in DBing.
It does sound like things went quite well, I'd just caution not to read too much into anything that took place. It sounds like you didn't and that you maintained your distancing, so it sounds like you're taking the right approach. Your sitch is still quite young, it may be some time before your W really starts coming to terms with what she wants to do. For now she's still deep in the fog and will probably continue to do a lot of distance/ pursuit behavior. Just remember that when you do things like skiing by yourself or buying gifts for the kids do it for you and not because you're trying to get a reaction out of your W. If you're trying to gauge her reactions to everything she's going to sense that and perceive your actions as tricks to get her back.
Thanks for the encouragement AnotherStander. Yes, the full-blown MLC and marriage issues is only 2 months old, and I do not think anything in her mind has fundamentally changed.
Now that my thread is up, I'm going to post daily journals to help me think through all this. Starting back a week:
Feb 18
My wife is on a 1 week business trip and I know she is lonely. She is there with nobody else from her work for training. She sent me a simple message, “I miss you”. I get mixed signals from her all the time like this. Since I still have access to her email, I saw that on the same day she is “missing me” she wrote to her friend that she is still thinking about how she can leave the marriage. (she doesn't know I have the passwords).
We had bought our house in August 2012. My wife wants to redo the 1970’s kitchen we have. I agreed to it. Up until the ILYBIDLY speech in Dec 2012, she was planning on the kitchen remodel, she lined up a contractor and got a quote that we were going to use. In Jan 2013 she cancelled the contractor making measurements in our house. The reason is in her mind, I would stay in the house and she would move out.
This week, the burner in our oven went, and now she has rescheduled the contractor to come this weekend to measure our kitchen for the remodel. I take this as a small improvement in our relationship, but while I’m happy about this development, I keep telling myself not to be over-elated.
While on her business trip, my has not been sleeping. She called last night at midnight her time. We spoke, well she did most of the speaking of her day’s events and I listened. After about 20 minutes, I told her, “Hey it’s really late, you need to sleep”. This way I cut off the conversation.
Our cell phones are on the same account, and I can see when she calls, texts, etc. I checked, and I can see that she has been texting friends as late as 3:00 am and the other day she must have woke up early because there were texts from about 5:00 am.
My wife didn’t call this night, nor did I call her. While she is away on her trip, my parents are visiting to help with our 3 girls who have winter break. I let my parents sleep in my room, and I’m sleeping in a roll-out trundle in the room shared by my two youngest girls. I’ve been sleeping this week better than I have in a few months. I think it is a combination of knowing that my wife is not doing anything while away, that she is not here – so out of sight out-of-mind, and also there’s just some comfort of hearing my two girls sleeping so close to me.
Get a call from my wife, who’s due to return from her business trip tomorrow. She left her pocketbook in the cafeteria on the back of the chair she was sitting at. After returning to training, she realized she forgot it, ran back, but it was gone. Filed a police report. She lost all her ID’s so going through security at the airport on the way home will be fun.
I email her a scanned image of her passport to use at security. She actually went through security fine. Seems TSA has procedures for these situations. I had to cancel all our shared credit cards, debit cards, etc. She lost her eye glasses, which she paid a lot of money for, as well as a nice wallet and the $80 in it.
Mostly uneventful. Still practicing distancing. On Saturday morning went out alone for flight lessons until noon. Spent time with my Dad. On Sunday took my parents and everyone else out sight-seeing.
I've noticed something about intimacy, and wonder if this is common with others. We continue to ML and are intimate in bed with both of us initiating. For example, this morning soon after waking up, my wife rolled closer and put her arm around me and her head on my shoulder. Yet, during the day, she is more distant and tends to avoid intimacy.
My guess is during the day when she is wide awake her shields are up? Or maybe the bedroom is some safe zone.
Sailing, initially W and I continued to ML also. She would be affectionate in bed but during the day, nothing. She would tell me that she didnt know if we should be doing it but that she was so lonely. So we did. I will say that as time has gone on, sex has been decreasing with each week. That doesn't really seem like a good sign for me. The funny thing is, I would love to ML to her but my desire has also decreased. Maybe stress, maybe knowing that the person I ML to does not love me. Who knows? It is definitely a roller coaster of a ride and not a fun one. It will really toy with your emotions. Just stay strong and try to follow her lead.
M 37 W 36 T22 M14 D8 D4 8/2012 distanced BD 11/2012 (likely wants D. Feelings have changed.) W move out date: June 8th.
