Advice for vacation w/ wife in MLC

[Bewildered]

Background story: My 40 year old wife of 18 years dropped the ILYBINILWY bomb about 6 months ago. She told me she still moves me but has no passion or sexual feelings for me anymore. Wants out of out relationship and blames me for everything. Many classic MLC symptoms. Further, she is having "romantic" feelings for an old HS boyfriend and has reached out to him with phone and texts, but she swears he doesn't return her feelings. She claims it is all a fantasy in her head, and although they call quite a bit I do not think they have started a physical affair.

For the first few months I did all the wrong things where I tried to smother her, buy her stuff, be romantic, tell her I loved her, call her a million times a day, monitor her cell phone calls, etc. On the advice of this board and others I started trying to detach a few weeks ago and I have been doing quite well I think. I let he have all the space she needs, have dropped the cell phone monitoring, stopped pursuing her.

My question is, this weekend we are going on a weekend trip we scheduled 6 months ago. This is to an all-inclusive resort in Domincan Republic, and no kids. This was originally intended to be a romantic getaway, but with everything going on we are both nervous about it. Since we can't get our money back we have decided to go, not talk about "us" at all, not take any self-help books, just enjoy each others company. We have not talked about sex on this trip at all (we haven't had any intimate contact for about a month). My question to the board, since we will be so far removed from our normal reality and in a very romantic spot, do I suspend the DB tactics and try to woo her? Should I try to initiate sex if the opportunity arises? Should I tell her I love her? Or should I continue DB tactics and keep myself detached. I feel this is such a rare and unusal opporunity that I want advice. Also, on a final topic, in the last few weeks, since I have started the DB tactics, she has told me she loves me a few times. How do I respond? Thanks!!!!

[JMC]

Does sound like classic MLC and your experience is similar to mine.

should I try to initiate sex if the opportunity arises? Should I tell her I love her?

I can only speak from my experience. After W dropped the bomb we ML almost on a weekly basis even after she moved out until we sold our home last June. During one of those times after a great dinner with several glasses of wine, I mentioned the ILY phrase. Not a good idea. That was a deal killer. She stopped everything and just began balling.

So, I guess my advice based upon my experience would be that since you are going to be on what would be advertised as being a 'romantic' getaway, if the mood strikes go for it, but do not mention ILY.

[Bewildered]

What do I say when she says ILY first? She rides our D15 to school every day, and this morning as they were leaving the house she said I Love You and wanted a kiss. I hesitated for a second and thought of our D15 taking in every second and walked over and kissed my wife and said ILY back. Is that violating DR rules? What *should* I have done?

[JMC]

she said I Love You

I can not answer that as my WAW has never uttered those words since walking away. It seems you handled it well.

I had a similar event occur last March about 3 weeks after she moved out. She dropped me off at a car dealership to pick up my daughter's car. As I was getting out of the car she said 'when are we going to do something?', and then followed that up with a request of a kiss. Crazy stuff this MLC!