She's ready to move on

[Michael Mc C]

W started school Tuesday and really enjoyed getting back to classes because her brain had been "getting soft". After class we sat for about an hour and discussed her syllabus and the topics they went over (endothermic critters vs. ectothermic ones). We spent the rest of the evening hanging out playing a game. Around 11 pm she went online to play her "other" game for about half an hour.

This is how things USED to be with us. Her online game was almost always an afterthought - it was in the summer (go figure, OM came around about that time) that it became an addiction.

Wednesday I received a text from W while I was at the client's office. She was dropped from one of her classes because of a miscommunication regarding pre-requisites. Needless to say she was pissed. On my way home I caught myself trying to come up with solutions to her dilemma so instead I decided to simply listen, validate and provide advice/support if requested.

That worked like a charm! Instead of me telling her what she should do, or telling her what I would do in that situation, I listened, validated her feelings and I reacted perfectly. Oh, and I maintained eye contact! It's amazing what can be missed in a conversation if you don't keep that eye contact.

So we spent the entire night together again. We bought Guitar Hero for the kids so W and I played all night long and we had a blast. Good natured competition, a little horseplay, she even took a picture of me playing (she stopped taking pictures of me a LONG time ago...)

She didn't log on to her game at all last night.

At bed (couch) time, she told me "Tonight was a lot of fun. Thank you."

So a good couple of days. Nice anyway. If it wasn't for that damn "D" word that's been thrown around, I would say that I feel married...

I can feel us rebuilding some kind of a connection - whether it's only friendship or not, I can't judge. I refuse to consider it fixing the marriage but without interactions like this, I doubt she would have much incentive to fix the marriage. Besides, I clearly remember the conversation we had over the weekend in which she told me that D is still the only option for us.

Some things that have changed with her behavior:
* She calls me all the time
* She sends me text messages throughout the day (good news, bad news, everyday run-of-the-mill news)
* She looks to me for advice
* She is again taking time to actually sit and speak with me to catch up on our days
* She has fun with me!!
* She has begun discussing long-term plans for the house

Because of her school schedule I have had to modify ("had" is a strong word I guess...) my schedule for the gym. Tonight will be the first night this week for me there. As much as I've enjoyed out uninterrupted evenings this week, I will make sure I go.

She just called and confirmed that she is able to take a replacement class and won't have to drop the semester. I said (laughingly) "Good, look what happened the last time you got bored!" She said "Yeah, wasted my damn life on EQ <her game>"