Well I've spent most of the night reading threads. On the one hand they've given me a lot of insights, esp on 2 counts: 1) My story is a common one and 2) HER story is a common one.
Last night she asked what I find to be an impossibly obvious question: "If you truly loved me, wouldn't you want me to be happy and let me go?" That is a treacherous question!
We've been having lots of R talks -- probably a mistake. She called and said she'd gone from happiness with her decision to drop the bomb to a place of anger (again, which she didn't want). So Man Up! Let me go! And it would be good for the kids because then we could focus on them!
The awful thing is that I see the logic there perfectly. If you love someone don't you want to do whatever it takes to make them happy?
So now I'm all conflicted on the DBing. And it didn't help that I read the WAW forum and, yep, that's her.
But then I think -- surprise, because I'm trying to DB, right? -- why would someone want their happiness to come at someone else's expense? And the only obvious answer I can come up with is, "because you don't love that person any more."
So if she was sincere with ILYBNILWY, then she COULD be happy even at my expense. Because I would surely not be happy -- and I wouldn't be happy with my decision to love-her-and-let-her-go.
Because I would know it was the WRONG decision for me, at least at this time.
So what do I do? Do I fall on my sword and be a martyr to demonstrate that I "truly" love her by letting her go, or do I risk failing at DBing by continuing to anger her and make her firmer in her mind by insisting that we work together at least for a while to see if a new marriage/partnership can rise from the ashes of the old one?
Ugh.
Now I'll try to do the signature/sit thing -- see if I get it right:
Me: 46 WAW: 45 Married: 18 yrs Emotional Separation (hers): 1 yr S9 D6 ILYBNILWY/Bomb: 2-13-09 Same house, different rooms
