Thanks. I was hoping to hear from you actually as i ave read your posts and responses to others. I have done most of the changes in my life, quit drinking cold turkey w/o any problem. I am more aware of my appearance. My personality is definitely back to where it was. I am hoping that the time she is spending away she will at least consider what we had. She has made the comment to a couple of friends that if this thing with OM fails, she can always find someone else. that comment hurts very much. Her friends that are close to both us do agree she is making a huge mistake. everyone around us believes she will eventually come back, or at least they hope so. I am doing the 180 list you had posted. Mostly I rely on the no contact and not believing anything she says. The latter is what keeps my hope alive. She has contacted me a couple of times about nothingness. I don't take these as signs, but she has commented to one friend that she finds me very easy to talk to. I miss my wife very much and love her with all my being. I know from the people around her she appears very depressed and unhappy. I don't understand why she wouldn't want to reconnect with me to get away from these feelings. I have changed and friend of mine have commented on this saying its good to have the old me back. Do you think she has any reservations about leaving? Do you think part of her wants to come back but doesn't know if it can work with all the damge she has created by walking out? My oldest daughter was with her last week and commented that the woman she was with was not her mother. She was very withdrawn. I want to just go up to her, grab her, hold her and kiss her and hope she will respond in kind. The going dark mentallity is what I am trying now. Its only been a week, and it hurts like hell.
Just a note, and maybe you can give me some hope on this, she had been complaining about the house to her mother, when she omes over its a mess, clothes everywhere, bills falling off the counter, etc. Over the past week, she has commented to my younger daughters how good the house looks. when she asks about things at the house the kids tell her I'm going to be painting and moving some furniture around. She has noticed my significant weight loss. I dropped 23 pounds. Most from stress and not eating. but I am maintaining the weight loss and go to the gym when I can. She has commented on how good I look. I do believe she will come back, and I hope it is soon. She does have all the signs of a woman in MLC with WAW being an effect of that. It is very hard to envision my life without her. When I sit alone at night after everyone has gone to bed, it hits home again and again. I have read many books, articles and everything I can get my hands on regarding saving my marriage, getting her to fall back in love with me. All the advice is the same, start by minimizing all contact, get a postive movement going, remove the issues that she says created some of her unhappiness, reflect on these issues and see if they are things I really want to get rid of. I have done all of this. My changes are real and i do not brag or boast them to her. Our family and friends however, do. She does constantly come over to the house after work. She works part time with Wednesdays off, barely gets by financially, but refuses to give up her Wednesdays off. She has mentioned that she needs to get a full time job to her friends, but again, believing nothing she says. She comes over, takes a nap in my bed, grabs a shower, the leaves. She has not moved all of her clothes out or all of her things as she is staying at a friends who gave her a room. the friend also told her she could stay there for a couple of months, but that it can't be a forever kind of thing. A family member who is a psychiatrist has told me her impressions of the situation. I'd like to get your opinion. She feels that my wife had told me her unhappiness was not just with me, but the bills, the house, everything. I was not as active in the house as I was years ago and basically had become a couch potato M-F and a weekend drunk. She feels my wife was unhappy withe the lifestyle, kids not keeping their rooms clean, laundry always piling up, behind on bills, bill collectors calling non stop, the weekend drunken drama, house needing repairs that weren't getting done and a lack of any enthusiasm on my part to do any work on the house. She feels my wife walked away (ran away) from all the stress factors she has been looking at. Over a period of weeks she is seeing no pile of bils as i have taken on the full responsibility of getting them paid, housework is done everyother day, laundry piles do not exist, bedrooms are picked up mostly all the time and the house is in generally good shape. Where she is not around my role in the house has been extreme to say the least. She feels my wife is looking to see this happen, that she is away but keeping her eye on things to see if the issues she had are truly being changed. She also believes my wife willbe back based on her open ended comments and her lack of pursuing any of the things she has said over the past few weeks. I believe the reason my wife keeps her distance from me is because she does still have strong feelings for me and feels that if she gets to close, physically she will fall for me emotionally and that scares her. This family psychiatrist does believe that is probably true to an extent. Am I putting too much faith into what I believe with regard to her coming back? Is the evalauation of my situation that I am being given realistic? How powerful is the minimizing contact with her going to be with regard to her starting to miss me? I put a lot of stock into not believing anything she says, especially the "it's over, I'm not going back with him", I have found she has said quite a few things that were not true, should I hold onto this part of the 180 list as an absolute way to get through this? thanks for all your help and support
