WAW hasn't walked yet, but emotionally dead

[wawpioneer]

Mako,

Thank you for all your support. Again, tonight confirmed for me that it is time for me to detach and GAL all over again. I have received my answer for the destiny of our M for now.

I have a feeling that it is time for me to go dark and detach the best that I can. She told me that she did not want to resent me by having too much contact. So, I have to respect her wishes the best I can. I don't know what else to do. I refuse to have any R talk on e-mail but right now her preferred method of talking to me if any is by text.

I guess all that we can really do is wait for them to come around and respond to their contact if they choose to contact at all. How long should we wait though before we contact them?

[mako]

Hi WP, hope you're feeling a bit better today.

I agree, detaching and GALing seem to be what needs to be done. Neither of our Ws are in a place where they have a desire to work on the M, therefore we can't make them, and keeping a lot of contact is probably just seen as pursuit, us trying to improve the R when they don't want to. If they are ever going to come around it will be on their time frame. We can't make them, but we also can't just sit around waiting, as 1) we'll go nuts with that kind of waiting game, and 2) why would they want to come back to some guy who's just sitting around for them? So, detach and GAL, I've been doing a fine job GALing I think, now it's time to detach.

It's impossible for me to say how much contact to give. I plan on waiting around a week at least, other than the short response to her e-mail that I may do. I hope it will be a moot point as she'll be initiating and I'll just respond, but maybe not.

Went to C this morning. It was odd cause last week we were talking how I hadn't talked to W in a week, while this week I heard from her almost every day. C isn't sure about the mixed message either of my W wanting space, but saying email and phone is ok, but she agreed with my plan of just giving space overall. Agreed that we both need to work on ourselves, and space is probably the best way to get that to happen. She did say if I heard nothing for 2 weeks to consider checking in, we'll see if it gets that far.

[wawpioneer]

Thanks mako,

I am going to C here in a bit. I have tried to not call her for a while but she always finds a way to contact me somehow. First, she will try e-mail or text. Then she will eventually call. She will not leave a message. If I have not called her back she will then call and eventually leave a message. It is pretty predicatable. Sometimes it takes 6-7 days and sometimes she calls everyday for a little while. Usually to get something from the house or usually something to do with mail or family stuff. I think that my C and I will talk about space today too. After all, it is what she really "wants" right? Hard to tell how much space to give but I agree that it seems right to let her do most of the initiating right now. I am like you, If I have not heard from her in a couple of weeks then it might be good for us to contact.

[mako]

Just to journal a bit.

I ended up responding to W's e-mail last night, the one about her wanting physical space cause hanging out would mess with her emotions, but phone and e-mail is alright. I just said "I can see where you're coming from, space is a-ok, and might even be good to let me focus on working on myself." That last part was unnecessary, I wrote it kind of in response to her earlier comment that it's good I was making so much progress...possibly a mistake, but I can't sweat it now, it's done. I haven't heard from her.

This whole detaching thing is hard! I've felt a lot of urges to call W today for some reason, but I'm not going to do that. It might satisfy me for a moment but then she either won't answer or else we'll have a 5 minute conversation about nothing and it will just be back where I started and push back my detachment. So, I'm trying, it's just difficult, but I'll do it.

So there it is, one day of no contact and I'm already complaining, even though I've been through this several times already. Take a breath and say it after me: "Detachment is key, detachment is key."

I know GALing is pretty important to this as it gets you focusing on yourself, not the R. My dog has diarrhea though so I can't do much as far as going out, I don't want to leave her for too long. Tonight I just stayed in, made dinner and have been doing some writing...something I dabbled in a bit before but haven't done in years, so that's something and I've been enjoying it. I guess I haven't been doing so bad after all today, the urge to call hasn't been there much after work. So I'll keep pushing through...

[ca rollercoaster]

hey mako. keep your head up, you are doing a good job. you are doing well in this detachment thing. the more uncomfortable it feels the more successful it is. my W is at her christmas party without me tonight with OM there. i didn't do anything to look needy. didn't talk about it at all to her, i feel like crap. but..it is the best alternative for the long run.

[mako]

Thanks ca. As long as I can keep myself occupied I am usually ok. I still want to contact her, but will wait for her lead and hopefully that feeling will lessen.

I find detachment is helped along by focusing on the new W. If I think of the old times I just get sad and depressed by it all, but that person that I loved isn't there right now. Now she is cold, discourteous, distant, selfish, illogical...I remind myself: if she had treated me this way 6 years ago I wouldn't have wanted anything to do with her, so why care so much right now? Doesn't totally work, but it helps.

[wawpioneer]

Mako,

Every sitch is different but I did want to say that in my sitch we did not have contact for a while and then when we did she just met me to shoot me down again. However, in the mean time I had been listening a lot to some of the things that she had been saying in our short encounters over the past two months and had written them down. She asked what was on the notepad and I told her. She did not react at that meeting but thought a lot about those things and I think she realized that I was "getting it". Might be good to look back on what she has been saying and see if there is a list that you could come up with on her needs and desires. Like I said, every sitch is different. Just a thought.

I hope that you will be able to detach well and that she will eventually come around. Good luck!

[mako]

Thanks for the encouragement WP. I hope to be where you are one day. I believe that I "get it" now, I know exactly what she was missing and needs. The only question is a) how I can actually convey that to her, and b) whether it even matters at this point.

I did get an e-mail from W today. All business, just stuff about various bills. And, she got her job in NY, so she is leaving in January

[mako]

Not much new to report here. W said via e-mail yesterday that she might stop by today to pick up her mail. But she thought I was going to be out of town, I guess she changed her mind when I responded that I would be there--she never showed, and not even a call or e-mail to let me know.

This is all helping with detachment. I have almost no desire to talk to her anymore. The lack of courtesy and respect just kills me. She can't respond to e-mails or calls for several days, can't have the courtesy to let me know if she's coming when she says she probably will, can't look me in the eye when we've talked, and now can't even face me...all this lip service about wanting to be my friend, I wish she'd just have been upfront with me how she doesn't want anything to do with me, cause this is not how you treat a friend.

I can sure see how most LBS don't have the patience to wait around for the WAS to break out of their funk, I have no desire at all to be with someone--or even friends with someone--who treats their "friends" like this. Perhaps if she ever comes back to some semi-normal state and shows me a little respect as a person I'd be willing to be friends with her, but I can't see it right now.

[mako]

Well, I got the cell phone bill yesterday. I already knew something was going to be abnormal as I mentioned somewhere above, but this was a doozy.

W talked on the phone for over 2000 minutes with a guy she used to work with. Yes, just under 34 hours in one month, with one person.

This guy lives in California now but is in the area occasionally, he even went to lunch with W shortly before we separated. He's about 40, D'd earlier in the year. They were pretty good friends from work, so she mentioned these things and I knew he existed, but I have never been the jealous type (W hates that type anyway) so it didn't matter to me if she had male friends. I've also heard from a mutual friend that W is going to California around Christmas. Hmm.

I know that snooping ain't really the way to go, but this was staring me in the face and like a bad accident scene I just couldn't look away.

I should mention that I looked back at some old bills as well. Nothing seemed strange until September there were a ton of calls with this guy. I now recall a number of times she went outside to talk on the phone "because the reception inside was no good," or she'd always make a point to take her phone when she walked the dog. Lots of working late too...Ok. Not surprisingly, this was also when W seemed coldest to me and unimpressed with any efforts to work on the M.

Anyway, I have no idea what if anything is going on, but it seems pretty clear that something is, 34 hours of talking isn't likely to be innocent talking with your buddy type stuff. I also know that whatever is going on there's nothing I can do about it so I can't consume myself. But I'm not happy...I guess it is making things easier as far as moving on, as I don't like her very much right now. I always said to myself I could forgive an A, and she doesn't even consider us to be married at this point, but it's a lot harder when it starts seeming like a reality.

As for us, we've had little contact, just e-mails here and there. As for me, haven't been doing too much, been kinda overwhelmed with work, that will end soon though.