So WAW and I had a couple of longish convos yesterday. She's pretty broken up about the kids' reactions, as you can imagine, so I at least take this as a sign that @Greek's earlier comment about the fact that LBS's tend to underestimate the struggles (some) WAS's face was largely correct. I did my usual thang -- validated, smiled and waved, told her I'd do whatever I could and she was comfortable with in terms of helping her cope, but I didn't let her off the hook during the Kid D-Bomb.
At least as she expresses it to me -- and while it could be all part of some dastardly master plan I don't think she's that good of an actress -- she feels pretty much dead to the world. She's done with Signore Schmuckatelli, to the extent there ever was a "there" there, and she's started using my language and my version of L'Histoire du Smiley's Person in talking to people about our sitch -- which I also take as something of a victory, insofar as it suggests (suggests) that the fog is thinning, if not lifting.
I am decreasingly blameworthy for her Walk the way she now tells the story, and it is increasingly a joint failure to cope with serious stressors in our marriage. So I take that, too, as something of a victory.
And it hasn't hurt, apparently, that Smiley's Person has attracted more than the occasional glance from the Female of the Species. @robx's brief on behalf of jealousy seems, in this instance at any rate, to hold more than a shade of truth.
She's accepting some Friendiness hugs and hasn't reacted negatively to some otherwise unthinking physical expressions of care -- little things I always did -- and she keeps asking "how can you?" when "you're still in love with me?"
To which I replied -- Whoa, there, Keemosabe! No one said anything about "in love" hereabouts. Yes, it's true that I love you; you are, after all, the mother of my children. But let's not get delusions of grandeur here -- ol' Smiley's Person isn't sitting 'round, pining away, plucking daisy petals. Thanks to this sitch, I don't find it all-that-hard to imagine myself with any of a number of women.
Which she didn't like to hear, but which I liked saying -- not least because it's true. And it didn't kill the convo or her openness to me -- it just sort of woke her up to some realities. Like the Reality that, on average, it appears that I'm actually doing rather better at this whole "D" thing than she is. Which has got to be a kick in the pants.
So the Friendiness continues. And I keep leveling my sights at those 25-meter targets.
