"As much as I tell her now that I'm willing to fight for this, I think she is pulling away"
Well, yes. This is totally predictable. The more you pursue her, the more she will pull away. She will do whatever she has to in order to maintain a distance she is comfortable with.
Doing what would work for women posting to the SSM board who are interested in working on their Ms and SLs is not going to work for a woman, namely your W, who has more than a foot out the door. But, she doesn't have both feet, yet. She was searching for "troubled marriages" after all. If you would give her enough space to breathe, she might choose to really work on the M.
In the meantime, focus on yourself and being a happy, confident, successful person regardless of what W does. This is all you can do to help your M until W is truly invested in working on the M with you. If you become someone she wants to be with, perhaps she will choose to really work on the M.
Have you read DR yet? You are obsessively focused on OM. OM is the least of your problems. Confront W on the A or not. Whatever. Getting rid of OM is not going to solve your problems (though forcing the OM issue may increase them.) OM is not the source of your problems. Getting rid of him cannot solve them. Draw the line in the sand wherever you want to, but do it because of where you choose to set YOUR boundary, not because of how you think W will react.
Other than obsessing about OM, there is plenty that you can do now to work on your M and yourself, work that you will need to do to be in any R successfully, with W or someone else down the road.
Thanks for the thoughts, and I largely agree with you. Angst over OM is obviously the most gun-wrenching, and therefore what I post a lot about, but it's 0% of my focus with HER. ALL of my energies are being spent on "looking good, smelling good, being good." Being the kind of husband and just the kind of PERSON that someone would want to be around. Maintaining my sense of humor, ditching the anger and the poutiness and the grumpiness, and trying to be more FUN.
OM and my marriage are two separate problems, each to be dealt with separately and in their own time and manner.
My wife seems so distant, so cold. She's irritable. I've been annoyed with her for seemingly not caring, or trying as hard (or in the manner) that I am, but today is the first day since our lunch convo at Olive Garden that I have felt some genuine compassion for her. I think that's good?
She must be horribly upset. She finally gets one part of her life going (her career) after 20 years out of the workforce, and is really feeling good about that, and then both of her daughters tell her they're moving out of the house, and she's staring a mini-empty-nest in the face with the three people she has invested the LEAST with, emotionally.
Especially her husband.
And now he drops THIS on her.
Still, it had to happen, I know.
Instead of drawing near, she is creating distance. Instead of starting to work at it, she's preparing herself for if/when we are apart (the comments about "I need to make more money.") I've noticed that she is making the boys do more for themselves (which, at 14 and 10, GOD KNOWS should have happened a long time ago, but she's NEVER done that!).
I think she's "sabotaging."
Although all of my focus has been on her, and HER focus is always on her, I think it has totally freaked her out that I would:
a) Confront her to begin with;
b) Tell her that I cannot live in an affection-less marriage much longer (we've had "The Talk" a half a dozen times in the 20+ years of our marriage, but I have NEVER stated it that way before... credit SSM!);
c) Tell her that I thought we needed to put a time limit on seeing some progress, and that my time limit was as short as "the summer";
d) That in the MIDST of all of that krap, that I would -- what -- restate my love for her? Is he serious??? He's THIS pissed, THIS sad, THIS done with the apathy and distance, but yet he ALSO recommits himself to me, to fighting for me, and now he's IN THIS FREAKING GOOD MOOD most of the time??? WTF????
I think I have thrown her off-center. And I think that's a GOOD thing.
Choc. Shmagic from the other thread said The difference in my own situation this time is that I no longer have the FEAR of the end of my marriage. I want to stay with my H but I am no longer FRIGHTENED of it ending. This sort of is how I feel. Maybe I don't have the fear Shmagic had. I think mine is more frustration and thinking I have to make this M work.
I think I can see what works and doesn't work better when I have this frame of mind that failing at this M, isn't the end of life.
I don't know I am doing the right thing. All I know the other way wasn't working and I was eating myself up.
