My goodness...step away for a few hours and come back to so much to think about....thanks to all of you.
NW - my S11 is turning into quite an incredible young man - and I love watching it happen - and hearing people talk about him with joy in their voices. He's just such a good boy - and has such a fine heart in him - he was one of the first people to notice that the anger was just gone from our home...and he still talks about it with me - how calm things are...how much I laugh and smile.
Veronica - that's it all right, anger is her false friend - and yet I think she still needs this anger to protect herself from the real emotions. Right now I'm preparing myself for returning that focus on me, my kids and my life once I get back to LA...at times I've found that being home with family has actually made me sadder than I was by myself in Pasadena...mostly because of the turmoil in the lives of my brother and sister, the tension between my father and my siblings, the refusal of my mother to do anything for herself...and continue to martyr herself for her kids...
KenF - it is that damned if you do, damned if you don't approach - and my W has somehow mastered it...which I guess is also very common with MLC's and borderline personalities...I just don't make it mine anymore - since I've recognized the way it works, I won't play - and it keeps me safer in many ways. Not always happy - but certainly calmer and safer. I hope you come back to the board more ofter...I got the sense the community here helped you a lot before, and I you're certainly in a tough stage now. As for the guilty feelings - it's the other odd aspect of this all - since she does seem to want me to feel guilty for things that I haven't done...but that's not new...just more amplified of late.
Dudess - it was the first time she was in the house since I got the new fridge (at least in the house far enough to be in the kitchen) - so it seems lot of stuff could have gone through her mind about what's different now. The house and kitchen are cleaner than before she left - and there is open space on the counters - I've also rearranged furniture throughout the house...so any of those changes could have affected her emotions to some extent...And thanks so much for that reminder to check her distorted perception of things...As I was out with my son and mother today, I remembered that I had planned on setting that photograph and one of the turkey hands on the kitchen table for her to see...and just completely forgot about it...Maybe I'll just let her know that detail when I talk with her next. Despite reading the Evans book - she still insists on telling me what I'm thinking - and what my motivations are for my actions...when we were still talking - she would usually follow up those words by accusing me of telling her what she is thinking or doing...so she is in her a whirlwind of her own making.
Whit - slow it down some, my friend. Turn that tension and energy onto yourself and stop thinking so much about why she does what she does...it is out of your hands...and your only choice is whether you want to stick it out for her or not - knowing that there are no guarantees...which is also a way of saying, that sticking it out for her - doesn't mean putting yourself in a holding pattern - it means digging deeper into yourself than you've ever been brave enough to dig before - and finding what it is about you that has to be resolved, empowered, and allowed to grow. By the way...in your own words, you've captured a truth (maybe even a truism) that you need to look at more carefully. You wrote, "yet she seems happier to go out and start to date someone else."
Let be be finale of seem...or...to stumble away from The Emperor of Ice Cream...seeming is not the same of being. She may seem happier - but that's the message you're supposed to be getting - it's not necessarily the reality of her state of mind - whenever my wife visits her family, she comes back and tells me, "it was great!" fantastic, wonderful - you name it...and then sometimes I get hints of what it was really like...and I remember that she wants me to believe that she's better off without my - and she wants to believe that herself...but no amount of acting or saying is going to make that real if it's not based on some healthy growth and honest insights...that's the privilege we get from being the LBS...we are forced to be honest with ourselves to a profound (and often painful)degree...but we have the opportunity to become better, more fulfilled people.
