A little background. 3 months ago my W said I love you, but not in love with you. We both went completely ballistic and then she went dark started detaching.
At the beginning I tried to pursue, wanting to talk to her about all these relationship self help things that I had been doing (Not DB or DR) and it seemed to push her in the wrong direction too.
I then gave her space again. She started going to counseling and she seemed to be detaching more. It appears she basically GAL.
The basics:
She said that I made all the decisions the last 10 years and she's not been able to pursue her dreams. Dreams that we both had when we got married. She says I got a real job, asked her to move to my hometown and she feels trapped in her life. She is a stay at home M with our two children D3 and D5.
My new perspective: I quit communicating with her the last several years. Work started getting the best of me and we basically got into a big routine.
I started reading DR and going to these forums. I GAL, 180's (that seem to be working). At the first I did the 180's for her. Now have better perspective and doing them for me. Keep journal.
I think one of the biggest things recently that I did to open things up (at least my perception) is that I approached her one night and told her that I want to reconnect with her and work on things. She said that I feel what is best is that we go our seperate ways still. I did a 180 and said, "I think you anything is possible." She says, "that I want to be your friend and you are a good father. I don't want to lose you as a friend." But apparently not a good husband. She also said I was irresponsible and bad with money (she handles all the finances and I have been bad at giving her receipts, etc.).
After that two things happened: she started texting me more throughout the day (communicating) and then asked about changing our phone bill to a better plan (possibly thinking in terms of the future) and then asked me to take her out to dinner on her birthday (previously she had mentioned that she was going to go out with all her bunco girlfriends for dinner).
Had probably the best date with her in 5 years. Had the best time, she hugged me about 5 times that night, and thanked me over and over for her birthday.
My biggest question is it seems like we take a step forward then take a step back. The next couple of days went cold on me. Sometimes it feels great to be around her, small talk, etc. Other times awkward still to talk with her. Seems like I think to much about the situation too much.
My question is this. I have a hard time knowing the difference between pursuing and communicating more to her (Obviously this is one of the reasons we are in this boat). What is the difference between communicating more and pursuing?
