Divorced, but 'still hopeful' to reconcile.

[still hopeful]

breton39,

Thank you again, breton. I appreciate the time you took out of your day to write to me again.

I do understand that lashing out at me is safer for her. She is sooo angry and hurt still. That's understandable. Additionally, I have figured out that my NOT responding to her lashing out at me is my best response option. I have fared the best in dealing with her anger towards me by staying calm and staying present; deciding not to escalate an already volatile situation, even if I am hurt be her behavior/words. I have gotten better at it with practice.

REAL TIME HAPPENINGS (that may positively affect my efforts to reconcile with XW or many not):

Thursday night was a very sad evening for XW because of a HUGE fight she had with her mother. They have a long standing mother-daughter history of antagonism, anger, disagreements and disappointments. XW texts me near midnight to tell me that the fight happened.

I did what I always do with her. I told her to call me if she needed to talk. She did call, but we only spoke for a moment. Very upset. Last night was very interesting for me processing all of the 'events' with XW.

XW asked me to come over tonight play Scrabble. I knew that she didn't care so much about Scrabble and that her reasons were (1) she was still very upset about the fight with her mother, (2) that she didn't want to be alone, even though our children are present ('loneliness' has been a common feeling for her since we split, despite the children being in her presence), (3) that she wanted assistance in tending to our children and putting our children to bed, and/or (4) she actually wanted to just be with me.

That last reason has been happening with more frequency lately, however, I keep my thoughts, feelings and what I 'know' in check because XW is currently in between BFs (which causes her to soften some towards me, plus I've seen this is a pattern before). AND, she did just have a big fight with Mom. LOTS of factors to consider to help keep myself sane.

All I can DO for her right now is to be supportive, loving and helpful. While I was talking with XW, last night about her mother, read an email to me that she sent to her mother. In that e-mail, she told her mother that she and I are the two most abusive people she knows. <Ouch!>

BOMBSHELL:
After XW vented for quite a while, I interjected that I was sad that she still viewed me in the same negative light. It wasn't an angry conversation, and she did open up to me. She told me that she loves still me, and always will (yes, I am aware that this sounds cliche). She also told me that she doesn't really see herself marrying someone else because she can't see herself giving all of her to another again. Lastly, she said she can't see herself having children with someone else in the future. In the last couple of days, she told me that if she and I had stayed together, we'd have had at least 4 children.

Much of what XW divulged was new information to me. Good information. It was real information; not just having a feeling of mine or relying on my intuition, no matter how accurate my feelings have been since we split. Again, I do know that I have to keep myself and my feelings in check.

I don't have the ability to reconcile my M on my own. But I certainly do have the ability to close the door on the possibility of our reconciling all on my own. (<--THAT's a lot of power and responsibility) As I told her last night, I strive to create as many new positive experiences together, as possible, going forward so that the old negative ones, while not forgotten, will be prioritized in her memory recall BEHIND the positive, newer experiences. It's not about forgetting. It's all about creating new, better, loving, positive experiences to overwrite the bad data that sometimes overwhelms us.

Well, that was all for yesterday. A lot of information. Most of it very good. I will pray. I will post. I will read. I wish everyone here well in their journeys.

Tom