Over the Shock and GALing 4

[Thinker]

A quick update:

Since the emotional escalation that took place over the past couple of weeks followed by the blowup last week, things have been quiet and distant.

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First (since this is a new thread) a quick review of sitch.

Since I discovered the EA and she dropped the bomb last November, my W and I have been cohabitating and raising our kids together, but the R is otherwise distant and strained. My W is firmly on the fence, both afraid of the consequences of D, and unwilling to commit to working on our R. The result has been a slowly oscillating roller coaster between the two of us. I back away and detach, she moves toward me and things improve, then she backs off again. The EA ended in February, but my W makes periodic attempts to reestablish it, most recently 2 weeks ago.

I would summarize the past 3 weeks as a case of both of us watching the other, both of us acting strangely in response, and the whole situation escalating and blowing up. She came to some strange conclusions about the changes I was making in myself, got scared and ran to OM. I saw her acting strangely, snooped and caught her contacting OM. She caught me snooping, lied about OM and the whole situation exploded last Friday.

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And now a short update on the past 5 days.

Since the blow up things have been quiet. I backed way, way off. On Saturday I went for a long (half-day) bike ride, went out by myself on Sat evening, and mostly avoided her. On Sunday we did our separate things. For the past 2 days I have been working hard all day in my home office with the door closed, and we each went our own ways in the evenings. It has been a sort of mutually agreed deescalation. I GAL. She GALs. We don't talk about anything important.

Last night I went out for happy hour, and came home at a pre-arranged time so she could go out with her friends. I went to sleep early and was asleep when she got back.

I skipped my morning workout this morning to sleep in. We ended up snuggling for an hour or so - half hugging, half sleeping, no talking - until the kids got impatient and got us up. First time we have touched since the blowup last week. I initiated, but she responded as if she had been waiting for me to initiate. Not sure if that counts as pursuing, but...

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Yesterday I went out for drinks with a good friend of mine who is also going through M troubles - has been for a while. His was a similar sitch, a distant M followed by an A, except that in his sitch he was "the cheater". He is now 2 years into a long slow reconciliation.

I for his opinion on my recent debates regarding transparency - i.e. should I stay strong and keep insisting on it even though right now it appears to be doing more harm (creating resentment in her) than good (rebuilding trust for me)(see my earlier threads for details). His response as one who now has to provide transparency himself: "Stay strong and insist on it. That's what I'd want my wife to expect from me"