It's been a few days since I updated my sitch. And lot has happened that I am still trying to sort out.
Well, the W finally asked about the intake interview. It came up during a cellphone conversation on Wednesday night, when she started to say something about the other therapist we had gone to see last month (who was not really a specialist with Asperger's children, but was willing to take the insurance money to have us merely discuss our parenting skills and act as S6's "advocate"). I was replying that I was no longer in favor of continuing that path even though the therapist was a referral from my employer's insurance plan, and W was agreeing fully about the dubious benefit we would see in pursuing that route when she suddenly remembered and said, "Oh, by the way, how did your meeting go with the UNC group?"
I then told W all about what that interview involved, and I led W through to the end where the conclusion made was that there was just not enough traits they could see in me to pursue anymore tests for Asperger's Syndrome (AS).
W's initial reaction was a sort of, "um, okay... ?" She really did not have much of a response. She did not try to belittle it or blow it off, but she also did not admit that she had made a mistake either, which I really never expected anyway from her. She tried to quietly regroup at that point and push on to a tangent about our S6. From that point on she tried to stay focused on what the UNC group could do for S6 and made no more mention of what they could do to diagnose me.
It was a quiet victory, if you could call it that. But all in all, the entire conversation was somewhat pleasant and positive, even in the lead-up to the topic of my AS screening results. At no time did we argue, in fact we seemed to agree on everything. We seemed on the same page in making decisions about our sons, including therapies for S6. It was odd and more characteristic of how we saw eye-to-eye so well in prior years.
Most importantly she was softening up with regards to the upcoming holidays. I had begun to talk to her via email on Monday to inquire whether she was interested in hearing my thoughts on her original proposals for Thanksgiving. We've since had several emails passed between us. She announced that her cousin would not be stopping by on the way through here this weekend, and that she had to agree that it was more important for our 2 S's to be with their father on a holiday than to visit with a Great Aunt & Great Uncle, especially since she was definitely going to be working that day anyway. So that opened a line of dialog where we're negotiating the specifics for how we arrange for our children to spend time with us, separately.
That leads into another subject. We have had a lot of emails between us this week. After several weeks now of me being mostly dark, with the exceptions of a few backslides in that regard, I was testing the waters of détente. For the most part W has seemed very receptive and encouraging. She has even thanked me for communicating openly and fully with her again. For some reason she actually seemed pleased to se that I was coming out of stealth mode and was willing to engage her via email conversation.
This dialog has almost entirely been R related, but I don't think I hurt my position even if it might not have really helped it either. Thursday W began to reopen the subject of our problems in communication in our M, and from there we're back discussing what happened and what we each think went wrong.
This dialog has been in very dangerous territory for proper DB'ing, and it seems like W is enticing me to come out of "silent running" so she can either honestly talk or to start launching "depth charges" (to continue the submarine warfare analogy) ...in a sucker punch maneuver -- I'm not quite sure which. However, when she begins to use words like "I've given up. I have nothing left to give. I’m sorry. It just hurts too bad. I haven’t seen anything from you that makes me inclined to trust you. I don't believe you've really changed." then I realize she's back to trying to get me to give her more ammo to continue running away from the M. This latest retreat by her came when I mentioned that she had failed to give me an ultimatum before she began to silently walk away.
At no point, in recent weeks, have we discussed the OM and the A. At several points in this latest dialog where she was blaming me for a lot of our marital ills, I refrained from mentioning those serious, elephant-in-the-middle-of-the-room transgressions by her, out of concern that she would run away again rather than hear about her own peccadilloes. Other than the bit about the ultimatum, I have played way to nice but without becoming a doormat. (I have learned that being the doormat only hurts me more than not, so I will defend myself where I deem it is warranted.)
I really don't know whether to go back to silent running or not.
