She's gone...I'm devastated, but hopeful - Part 2

[minkerman]

Quoted from my own post, a couple days back.....

My W is coming over to my (our) place for the weekend...so this is a big one for us, spending the weekend together. I will play it cool and make sure she feels no pressure at all. So far I think she is feeling comfortable...so I'm going to "stick with what is working" for us.

She left about 30 minutes ago (5pm Sunday evening). I'll give a play-by-play of what happened.

The last night I slept with my wife in 'our' bed was Dec 28th. She has visited the apartment twice since we separated, and we have not had any pajama parties here We have been sleeping together over the past 10 days, at her place.

Anyway.

She texted me at 10am Saturday morning "I'm on my way". I went out and bought 2 bottles of wine and a red rose, which I placed in a vase on the coffee table in the livingroom. She arrived with a big smile and a hug and kiss. I was relieved to see that she didn't have second thoughts on staying over, since she brought her overnight bag. She told me right away that she felt "weirded out" by by coming here, but she was going to work through it.

We talked for a while and decided to go out for lunch, to our favorite burger joint. On the way she said "I'm going to be totally honest with you - I feel that we might be moving a bit too fast in this". I said "OK, let's talk about it" (big 180 for me). Over lunch I found that she felt she was being drawn back into the relationship, and being expected to commit, when she still felt she hadn't explored herself fully by living on her own. I reminded her that it was HER that started the dialog that brought us back together, and it was HER who had reached out every time we had gotten together over the past week. I suggested that perhaps she felt subconsciously that we should recommit, and that maybe she should listen to her gut feeling. I said it in a gentle way, while holding her hand across the table. She said - "yeah, maybe you're right, I do tend to overthink things, especially after you have left. When you're here it feels so right, but when you go, I start questioning. I'm just scared, since this is a total turnaround for me from 2 weeks ago."

I totally get that - but I never realized how firmly set she was that she was moving on alone. She said she had left the door cracked open, but it was closing, not opening.

Anyway, we came back to the apartment after lunch and started working on a presentation she has to do at work on Tuesday. She had asked for my help, and I am happy to do it, since this is my strength. We worked hard on it, brainstormed like crazy, and came up with a great presentation...4 hours' work! She really appreciated my help and told me so.

The next couple of hours, we got into more R talk, and it was good. We talked about the things that both of us were scared about, and possible pitfalls of reuniting. There were very few we could come up with!

Then I ordered chinese food, and we had an awesome meal and cracked the 1st bottle of wine. More talk. In fact, we got into the 2nd bottle and almost finished it before heading to bed.

She was a little apprehensive about sleeping in our bed again, because she was in such a bad place emotionally the last time she slept there. She was sure she would wake up at 2am like she used to do when she was upset, and that scared her.

I lit a bunch of candles, we went to bed and made love like two old pros. Over an hour, a solid 10/10 for both of us. We went to sleep.

We both woke up at 2:15...arrgghh! Anyway, we took a different approach and ML again. That tuckered us out, and we woke again at 7am, with the sun shining right on our faces. Nice! What a good sleep.

While she showered, I cooked her breakfast. We had a wonderful morning, and she said she was feeling far more comfortable with how we were doing, and that her fears were starting to reduce. She is seeing the changes in me and liking them a lot. I said "the only reason you are seeing me like this is because we are spending time together". She agreed.

We went out to a pub for lunch, and talked some more (we have NEVER talked this much) and realized that our hopes and dreams for the future were the same.

She asked me to tell her why I had such a positive outlook for us. I said:
- we are very attracted to each other
- we want the same things out of life
- we love each other
- more importantly, we LIKE each other
- we communicate on a soulful level
- we have a lot of fun together
- I have made serious changes

I asked her the same thing. She said "I can't add anything to that - I agree with all of it".

I asked her if she felt pressured when I said "I love you". She said no, I like it. I get about a 50% return on it, that's why I asked. She does say it to me, unprompted, sometimes.

We came back to the apartment, gathered her stuff and we walked to her car. I told her that this time I wasn't sad that she was leaving, because I knew that we were going to go forward together, and that I would be patient with her. She said, "I know I am a handful, and I appreciate the patience". We kissed, and she left.

I never could have pictured us at this point two weeks ago, but here we are. Everyone's support here has been fantastic, and the DB process is a good one.