But as the power has shifted in my sitch, I sort of woke up with a 2x4 to the head: "Hey dude -- it, ummm, wasn't all you. There were 2 people in this marriage." WAW's attitude towards me in the context of the D has certainly evolved (right word?) as I noted to Puppy above. But it has evolved (regressed?) to her "normal" M behavior towards me: pushy and critical combined with a dollop of thin-skinned and defensive. She doesn't actively listen. I have to be constantly mindful of using the phrases "my point of view" and "my perspective."
She has this persona she adopts/uses with her friends and co-workers: clever, witty, quick-with-the-quip (stolen from me as often as not!), sassy -- think Myrna Loy in "The Thin Man." Lately she's chuckled about this or that and said, "That reminds me of X." When I look at her as if to say, "What's X?" she'll say, "Oh, didn't I send you that article / clip / link?" And of course the answer is, "No."
But at home, with me, none of that. I didn't discourage it, I didn't tell her to stop it, I didn't ignore her when she would tell me things -- she just had a Marriage Her and a Not-Marriage Her. Then she had a Divorce Her.
Now the Divorce Her has been subordinated, and the M / ~M Hers are back -- and in their familiar ordering. So let's play with a little thought experiment:
Assume that some kind of detente (cf, @Gypsy and the Art of War) is reached after Friday. Assume that some kind of tentative moves "back" (or, more accurately for me I think, towards some other place) are undertaken. At what point does one / ought one / could one expect to see Former WAS undertaking the kind of rigorous self-evaluation and reflection that Former LBS does during the divorce-busting process? That seems, at a minimum, only to be fair to me: sauce for the gander, sauce for the goose. (This assumes -- perhaps wrongly / unfairly -- that Former WAS has not been undergoing some kind of process during the separation, etc., I admit.) Because otherwise this would seem to have the effect simply of shifting the power back to the Former WAS -- gosh I'm glad you came home because all the problems were me.
But that can't be right. Can it?
Wow SP! Right on the money with some of my thoughts recently...
- What if we stay M'd and W doesn't Change?
- What if she never works on her own issues? I'd be miserable in our old M.
- Why are there multiple Mrs Thinkers - one with her friends and another with me?
Last edited by Thinker; 06/23/0901:48 PM.
Me 42, W 39, S8, S6, S2 M 11y, A & ILYBNILWY 11/08 Walking away from a bad situation.
