I've only been sort-of trying, since I haven't been entirely sure I still wanted to be with xh. After all, this whole leaving thing has happened three times now...it just happened to get all the way to D this time.
Clearly, I still have mixed feelings. (Hence the posting in this forum.)
So, xh and I are chatting as I head to the gym at lunch. Nothing unusual; we just chat several times a day. What is interesting, was I noticed a couple of different things during this conversation...
We were talking about the what and why of how our R fell apart. We talk about this a lot...it's not typically a bad conversation. Anyway, I mentioned that 'at least we're still friends'. xh's response was a very odd 'Yeah....'. Then I made the mistake of saying 'Well, I still feel close to you'. Weird, awkward silence from xh. (I did confirm, later, that I had made him uncomfortable.)
This is the second time I've made him uncomfortable. No, I'm not stupid enough to say ILY. (90% of the time.) But, I did tell him over the weekend that I was sorry we weren't going to be able to hang out--what with me driving across country and all.
Yeah, yeah, I know, standard DB. What's odd about this...is that during sep #2 (the one I busted), he really responded to affection. He just ate it up. I used to send him cutesy little ILY notes or call him 'just to say goodnight'. He loved it. So I find it interesting that he's more standard walk-away this time, and even when he shoes interest, I can't return it. Huh...
The other thing I noticed, was when he was talking about the bartending. He said several times that that was what ultimately caused our R problems...the habits he picked up and the crowd he ran with. xh said he felt we had a solid R up until that point, and that his issues had been workable.
During the conversation, I agreed, and we joked up some of the stupid things we both did back then.
It didn't occur to me until a little while later...that this was the first time (that I can recall) where he wasn't blaming all of his actions on his being 'messed up in the head'. That he actually seemed to be taking responsibility for it.
