You have managed to be at a place of much more detachment than I. I am struck though by some of the similarities in our sitch...another one I encountered as I read through your great summary was the emphasis on email as the vehicle for W. to communicate--at least during the whole separation process of the last 7 months. I remember telling her I preferred to talk face to face and she said email was better for her because it allowed her to reflect on things first before responding. I think it is because it is less intimate and more safe to be able to "compose her words". In conversation, many of her rationalizations and explanations didn't make a lot of sense, but she is good with words and (like your W.) able to arrange them to speak to her own view.
The independence thing is another striking similarity. Though my W. has not used this term, there is an emphasis on achieving and working her way up that has been a theme in her life. We have talked about her experience of "never quite being satisfied" with things, so in a sense she is perpetually looking outside herself for things. It's like the only place of feeling safe is when they are on their own or "independent". Problem for me is that, although I've had years of being single that have been okay, my best experiences where I feel safest and most fully "me" are when I've been in a loving, stable relationship!
Anyway, enough about me, but I wanted to comment on some of these similarities that stood out. I'm still really struggling with the whole idea of being okay without W. as inane as that must sound. You seem to be so strong on your own, lodo, I wish I had that. How did you get to that place for yourself?
