Essie: Thanks for your kind words! You are very sweet to share them. We all need to hear some kind words regularly, and I hope you are right about the options!
Tree and I are not ready for new relationships, but I am convinced part of abandonment recovery is to take a good, hard look at the reality of the situation and face reality as it is, not what I wish for. My W has said she wants a D and has not given any sign in eight months of willingness to even begin a conversation about our R. Maybe I've failed to approach her in the right way. Eight months is still short by some standards on this board, but it doesn't strike me as a trivial amount of time either. I feel I've learned a lot about myself, love, and life in general, and I am hopeful that I will get a chance someday to have a deep, loving, intimate relationship with a woman, something far better than what I had before. I know there's danger in rushing into things--one way people deal with abandonment is to act too quickly in seeking a new R. Another way is to avoid a new R out of fear of repeating the abandonment. The key is to take the risk anyway, for the rewards with the right person seem to be potentially quite beautiful.
