You know Tuna, for the last month there have been a HUGE number of little positives with the biggest being we are enjoying and wanting to spend more time together. The timing of the separation agreement and financial documents really threw me. I wasn't expecting them out of the blue like that. I knew they were coming but I did expect some warning. From that I reacted and reacted strongly. I took it in some ways as her saying one thing but doing another.
Well last night we sat down for a good 3 hour long conversation. A lot of what we talked about we really hadn't talked about. We spent a lot of time on how we each felt over the last 3 years, what our thinking was etc. We talked about our impressions of why we thought this all happened. For us this was a very big deal because we hadn't ever really talked this through in a level headed, open minded manner. One comment she made has really stuck with me, "maybe it's time we both forgive each other and ourselves." Absolutely!
That comment really resonated with me because I am trying so very hard to do both. I know if we can do that then we will make a big leap down the right path.
We continually talked about wants and I tried to listen and focus on her wants, validate them and work in how I can help deliver them. She backed off a good bit her stance on my wants after we talked about the partnership aspects of marriage, a subject she brought up at that.
We talked also about expressing how we feel and being honest with each other. I told her to not hold back how she feels that holding back only creates mixed signals which in turn leads to over analysis. She hates how I over analyze but started to see how she owns part of it too. She's reluctant on this because she's "reserved and an introvert by nature". I told her being honest means showing and expressing your feelings.
The feelings conversation lead to speaking each other's love language. She admitted she was not speaking mine at all and would work to do better at it. She admitted I was speaking hers in some ways but had a ways to go. Of which I told her it's nice to know I am finally speaking it correctly since I spend the better part of our marriage and definitely the last 3 years struggling to speak it.
I'm back to being very optimistic about us and that it'll take a really, really long time to build something new together. She is not as optimistic because of her reserved nature. But she wants to believe we can do this together.
I closed my comments by telling her I believe in her, I believe in us and I believe we can get through this together. I said, being friends is the start and we have made good progress in the last month and I'd really like to continue to work on that. (This closing really validated a lot of what she said and has been saying.)
So we ended our 3 hour conversation on a positive note and she felt a lot better because she finally said things that have been on her mind and in her heart and I listened.
If we really want to love, we must learn how to forgive. - Mother Theresa
