(((Sunshine)))) I can sense your frustration in your post. Maybe I'm wrong, but I sense that you want a great passion from your H- for him to woo you and come to you all guns blazing, full of passion and desire. Would this be a great romance which would not constitute 'settling'?
I don't know anything about piecing, other than what I've read, but it seems to me that the DB philosophy or working through stages is probably grounded in how things work in practise. At the moment you and H are in a stage 1/2 type phase- there is some anger and frustration and you are building a friendship. He has stated that he wants to get to reconciliation, but IMHO this is going to take time..... both for you to get to the stage where you can feel enthusiastic about the process and relax into it, and for him to find his feet and behave confidently. The passion will come- stage 3, but you need to build the solid and comfortable friendship first.....
In the success stories I have in my spreadsheet, the process of reconciliation seemed to take many months- 6 months at least when the S was longer term. During that time, I agree wholeheartedly that you need to take care of yourself. That's hard when you have to be open to him at the same time, and I can see that it isn't easy. Many of the success story people stated that there was a feeling of a second honeymoon when they acheived it. I am hoping that becomes the case for you too. I wish I had good advice, but I don't really. Just practicalities, I suppose.
Do you think we should try brainstorming some 'solutions'/behaviours that might get H doing the right things? I'm not thinking of things that involve a lot of work on your part- I can sense the frustration with you having to put more work in, but am just wondering if MWD has any techniques that might be helpful in this sitch that we could apply.....
The singer sounds great and I'm glad you could laugh together. That's good news at least!
