WAW came back from the house-hunting expedition, trying hard to DB -- acting "as if" -- but it was pretty shallow. I could see she was shaken up.
Didn't toss her a life-line, though. "SO how'd it go? See anything nice?"
Stink-eye.
I'll take that as a "no."
Fun is fun, but I need to reconfigure the as-if now. We have outing scheduled for Thursday. I am taking her to a well-known art gallery she's always wanted to see and then a picnic by the water. Getting a gourmet lunch from the local Shi-Shi-Stinky-Pants "Market" ("grocery store"?? perish the thought), a nice split of wine, etc. Figure about 5 hours start to finish.
I'll be wearing my new silk trousers, new shirt, new belt, new smell-sweet-sh*t, new suede shoes, new navy sports jacket (not blazer), with a new haircut. Maybe a manicure, as per earlier suggestion by one of our community's fine ladies, though that's a tough row to hoe for me, Manliness-Wise. The idea of sort of peeking my head into the nail place and being met by all those pairs of inquisitive female eyes is, well, jarring.... Might have to tan up a bit, too (I do quite naturally in the summer months), but there's the risk of George Hamiltonity, which would be bad.
Apart from NO R TALK -- strictly verboten! -- any other suggestions? We always liked wandering through museums together -- offer her my arm?
Ooh, a monkey wrench thrown in the works. WAW is "in love" with her realtor, a divorced former WAW. A divorced former WAW one year younger than W who walked-away from an 19-year marriage (ours 18) and 2 small kids (each roughly the same age as ours), and who has "no regrets" and is "loving every minute of it" and "who wouldn't change a thing" and who is now -- by her own admission -- my WAW's "hero, spirit guide, and mentor."
That's gonna complicate things. Because now I've got two of them to do battle with -- enabling BFF (single) and model divorced totally together content happy perfectly successful WAR (walk away realtor).
I'd be worried about the whole thong-creeping-up-the-backside feeling.
But to be honest, SP may be changing his plans.
I'm pissed.
Last night -- late last night -- WAW came in with the poopy-look on her face. Seems Realtor To The WAWs regaled W with some post-D stories. Apparently, for "only" about 2 years, whenever R2TWAW's children came to "Mommy's House," they'd cry all night/weekend that they wanted to go to their "real" home -- i.e., Dad's home. So R2TWAWs just wanted W to "know it will be tough."
So W came in to tell me that "it sucks" that "it will be tough."
To be honest, she caught me a bit off-guard with this, and my (bad) instincts kicked in, and I said, "Hey, this is what you want, right? You made the decision, you're pulling the trigger, so it, ah, 'is what it is,' right? Isn't that what you always say?"
No, said WAW, I might have made the decision, but you pulled the trigger.
Meaning, of course, that if I hadn't been such a P.O.S. of a husband, we wouldn't be here.
I dropped it and mumbled something inconsequential -- okay, if that's how you see it -- and was (again mercifully) redirected by D6's shouts that she was done in the bath. So I stood, gave W a quick peck, and walked off. She went back to OM on the crackberry. And her sister. Who knows about OM because she stupidly sent an email to the family email account referencing it.
But what kept me up most of the night was not her broadcasting of OM. It was "you pulled the trigger." I pulled the trigger. I pulled the effin' trigger?
Sure. I guess. Except for that part where I (and M.C.) repeatedly said there were alternatives, and except for that part where I said it would be worth it for the children to explore alternatives, and etc. and etc.
In fact, maybe I'm super-pissed. Talk about dodging responsibility for consequences -- the kind of the thing Puppy is most offended by in these situations.
So even tho I know you're not supposed to act from anger, I'm damn close to canceling this outing. I mean, WTF?
I can understand your anger. Sounds like even though someone who is not involved is giving a totally objective view of what may happen, she is still trying to justify what she is doing. SHE IS WRONG! I don't understand it either. I haven't done so well with this but keep acting as if and making those changes that she can see. Either she will get it or she won't. If she brings it up again, I would ask her what she means by you pulling the trigger. You don't have to respond but maybe her saying it out loud will cause her to realize how stupid her reasoning is? Don't know, sometimes that works with people.
M-41 ex-W-40 Together--17 years SS-20 D-14 Bomb--2 Feb 09 WAW--6 Feb 09 Officially divorced on 2 Jun 2010!!! ex-W has a boyfriend 8 Jun 2010!!! Off we go into the wild blue yonder!!!!
I have been DB'ing -- unevenly, to be sure -- for roughly one month. Probably more, but we'll be conservative. In _DR_, MWD suggests a rough figure of 3 weeks to observe small changes before reconfiguring one's approach.
My question to the vets -- what constitutes an observable change?
I seem to be stalling here. I was down last weekend, though I was largely successful in subordinating it -- one sort of sharp reference to OM, I'll admit, but otherwise not dim/dark/depressed (at least outwardly).
The previous 7-10 days I was doing fairly well.
As many of you will recall, what I've heard is a lot of script, plus a lot of vague things that either hold out some small opening in the future or are simply shining me on -- "who knows what might happen," "if we found that we were crazy about each other again I wouldn't resist it," "if it should come to pass I wouldn't be closed off to it," and so forth.
There have been several (perhaps 3 or 4) brief flashes of vulnerability, followed instantly by wall-reconstruction.
There was one unambiguous apology for a cruelty, which was a first in the history of the R.
She gave me a very hard-lipped, pro-forma kiss the other night, perhaps out of pity or some sense of obligation. A kiss from another man would have had more emotion in it.
She repeatedly insists that she's "not happy about this," that it's the "worst thing in the word," etc., yet simultaneously denies (at least implicitly, I haven't brought it up since MC #1 2 weeks after D-Day) that there is any alternative.
On the other side of the ledger, she's house-hunting (and telling OM about it, wink-wink); she's told at least a dozen people about the D and probably (almost certainly) more; she's clearing out the finances (in the organizing them and catching them up sense); she has terminated all joint credit accounts; she has consulted with S9's therapist for the best way to drop the bomb.
In other words, she's getting the ducks lined up in a row.
Okay, I knew that was going to happen.
So. Given this. What would be an observable, small change?
And, perhaps more importantly, given what I've done in GAL and 180, how might I modify my DB approach to keep the DB going?
