Letter from WAW after she flew to my city for talk

[GH31]

Hi Saffie and everyone else who has been looking out for me on these boards,

I am pleased to tell you that my wife did come home on Wednesday 16.04.2008 as she said she would. We had been separated a total of 80 days. I met her at the airport and put her travel pass in a dark red card for her (her favourite colour) and met her, carrying the rest of her things. Gifts is her Love Language so I also had a big spread of helium balloons and birthday presents waiting for her at home. However, she did look very sad and ashen white as she had spent the previous couple of days breaking up with OM. She only had 30 minutes sleep the night before she came back. During her birthday last week she was trying to explain to him that she had been "having doubts" about her decision to leave our M.

Now, I am elated about these developments but I am also very very cautious. She is also. In fact, I expect it to take many many more months to really be out of the woods and a sexual relationship at the moment is, I think, out of the question. She is sad to have broken OM's heart as he is a "very good person", "did everything right" and "deserves to be happy". He has also said that he "feels foolish", that "GH31 is never going to change" and that "you should give it more time". OM ripped up the birthday card that W had given him and was very, very upset. I feel for him, but I am also very paranoid that W will up and leave again (not that I am acting as if she would) and that W still has contact.

I have gently suggested that no good can come of any contact - for anyone involved. She did ask me to leave the room so she could write a "confidential email" to "offer him words of comfort" as he felt the last email W sent was "cold". It really, really bothered me that she wanted to send him an email and I gently said that for me it was like being slaughtered all over again but that I understood her wish and compassion in offering comforting words. It is fine for me and W to talk about OM but for her to send emails or have any contact is like a knife in the heart all over again.

She is sad, sleepy and very wary of me. I accept this and have mentioned that I respect her courage in coming back, and the fact that she decided to sacrifice her independent life.

We have not made any formal announcement to family in Australia and neither are we wearing our wedding rings yet. We went out the night she got back and I took her out for cocktails and pool. Alcohol is, as you know, a social lubricant so we ended up speaking about everything relating to OM. I have determined that what he offered that I did not was "kindness, generosity, selflessness and giving her compliments and affection all the time". I have always been reluctant to tell my wife how wonderful I think she is as I thought it would make me less of a man. How dumb can a man like me be? Really? Also, whenever I am not with her I am concerned she is calling or texting OM, even if I have no reason to suspect. These emotions I am told will take a while to subside and I have also mentioned to W that I'm sure it'll take a while for her to really trust me again. To trust that my selfishness, serpent tongue, anger and contempt really are things of the past. They are as far as I am concerned but I understand and accept that it will take some time for that to change. Honestly, I am very concerned about things unravelling again but will continue to DB my butt off until the end of days. At the moment I am giving her nothing but unconditional love and friendship.

So far I have been able to caress her head every night so that she can sleep and this morning I even caressed her bare back for 1 hour. Naturally I want to see the positive things continue. Baby steps. I am going to hang around here for a while before moving into piecing as I can sense that things are still very, very delicate. She is reluctant to talk about future plans like she has been during the last few visits and I expect that she will need time to grieve. My biggest concern is any more contact with OM although W has said that that will have to stop in order for our R to work.

In spite of the enormity of the task ahead and the fact that I am nothing like out of the woods, these are great problems to have compared to where I was a month and a half ago.

I sincerely thank all of you for looking out for me thus far and I am going to be hanging out here in Newcomers for a while yet.

all the best,

GH31