Plank removed from eye, too late for WAW 3

[Heimlich]

GD,

If I have hurt you, please exercise the 48 hr rule before responding to me

Never a concern. Help keep me honest. You've got some valid points here. Let me see if I can sort through my feelings.

The OM stuff.
I feel like I'm in a catch-22 here. Would I be hurt were she to end up with OM. Yes. Do I honestly believe that she's exposing herself to a lot of pain? Yes. Plus, I don't want our kids introduced to him, or anyone really, before she would be sure he'd be around for a while. I was also concerned that she would invite him to Christmas at her parents this year (she has them this first year) and that would confuse them. This probably could have waited until I got into my own apartment. I thought the timing would be OK because we just got out of mediating the severing of a R that she wants and that I agreed to without any major disagreements. Plus, yes, I'm trying to plant some seeds of doubt. I have no idea if they will grow and I don't have any way to control her choices. I told her that I don't have a problem with her seeing him (I do, but I don't, if that makes any sense.) So, I was selfish and concerned at the same time.

Oh, yeah, I can see my W going along with this to avoid disagreement. And if she is, that's fine. But, maybe she isn't. I knew she didn't want to get into a conversation about him with me, and I really just wanted to make the point to her that I really, really think he's going to hurt her, sooner or later, but he will. From a DBing standpoint, if she launches into a full-blown R with him, at this time, I don't envision being able to work things out with her. I know I may feel differently in the future. Maybe I'm reading too much into my W's behavior, but we are communicating better than we have in years and I think she's really seeing me being different. I know I can't control her and don't want to. It just seems that there exists a window of reconciliation here and if the OM is always in it, it might slam shut in my mind. Did that make ANY sense?

Now, what I thought was more pursuing and controlling than anything was that you brought this stuff up on two separate occasions (pre and post Mediation appt).

I don't know. In some senses, it felt like the continuation of the same conversation. Wouldn't do this over if I had to live the moment again, but my W was open to what I was saying (turned toward me, arms uncrossed, really looking at me -- those things have been different in previous conversations).

I'm going to have to read up on control issues because I'm not a controlling person. I thought this would be a good time to bring it up (not necessarily the duel conversation, but the OM thing) because we were physically at the place where we were severing our legal R. Also, I've been thinking of telling her how I felt about the OM even before I found the photos, because I know/knew that she would at least go out with him a few times after we separated. The photos put an additional element of might want to plant those seeds sooner rather than later. I don't know if anyone else is telling her this. I'd like to think I'd tell any friend, man or woman, considering pursing this type of R that I felt it was doomed.

She may have felt it as pursuing, but I don't know about controlling. I'm just not. Later on in our separation I may ask her if she felt I was ever controlling, but don't want to do that now. It's not anything she's ever mentioned in any R conversation we've ever had.

Now, while you've asked her not to do X, Y, or Z, you asked her if she would be hurt if YOU dated someone.

She had made some statements the day before about me dating, which floored me -- get a queen sized bed for practical reasons because you might not be sleeping alone, you need to get out, and one or two things similar. Just an honestly curious question to her about how she would feel about me seeing someone else. As I've written, I'm all over the map on this one. Part of me wants to, part of me doesn't. Maybe a nice cup of coffee or game of bowling with someone would be OK. Man, I just don't know. It came up in the context of what I said about OM, and may or may not have anything to do with her R with him in her mind.

Do you see the problem/hypocrisy with all of this? You also talked about getting a full bed for your apt, and how you could still "nail someone" in a full bed just as well as you could in a queen, plus you "like snuggling anyway."

In some of my posts there are hints of this, but I've got a ribald sense of humor. This was said as a joke and my W took it that way.

I've told her that I have no idea if I want to date or if I will date. Never even really thought about it, not in any serious way, until she brought it up. I also told her that if she dates, that's fine (even OM), if she chooses to do so. Self-interest and genuine concern intersect again.

I feel like you're grasping for what you can because you feel like the rug is getting pulled out from underneath you.

I felt like the rug was pulled out from under me in April. I'm honestly OK with moving out and think it could be good for us. I think it will be good for me.

She's actually said, unsolicited or prompted by me, that "space will be good for us". I know that can be read any number of ways, one of which that the door might be sightly cracked, in her mind, for us to get back together. Maybe reading too much into that, but she's said something like that 3 or 4 times now. And we are going to see each other a lot and have to rely on each other a lot.

One final things, these conversations "feel" different from the spouting off I was doing over the last two weeks. Looking back, those were from fear and desperation. These are comgin from a different place.

Back to your post a few days ago, one of my DBing efforts is going to keep my apt clean and mostly clutter free. Clean isn't a problem, the clutter thing, oofah. I'm telling you, I'm kindof like Pigpen.

Keep cracking the whip on me, GD. Salsa and bacchata tonight for me.

BD