I totally HATE the idea of separation, it kills me inside. For 90% of our time together we had a wonderful marriage, both very different but always found ways to connect within our seperate worlds. With the separation thing, I basically articulated what he said he wanted, although in hindsight I could have just listed the things he wanted without the S word. Once its out there, its harder to take back if you know what I mean, so you HAVE to be prepared to carry through with it.
In the beginning when it first came up, H was spending like there was no tomorrow, I had spent 12 months trying to say whoah cowboy, but got no more response on this issue than if I had of been talking to the horse, so needed to make it now as a straight business decesion projecting this behavior forward 12 months. Oddly enough, since bringing this up, his spending has been the best it has EVER been in 12 years or marriage. Just like that. He does that once he decides something. I dont know if this is to prove to himself he will be great and have all the skills to fly solo or if he is trying to say something to me.
Every time I seem to make choices based on acceptable behavior and boundaries, HE does the 180s on me and plays with my head again.
I will stick to no separation talk at all, delete the word from my vocab but happy to keep working through the components when he brings them up.
I have my new solo life ready to go once the $$ comes through which will take a few months I think, so have a little time. I did try to get him to get it happening as quick as possible, but I think if I back of from that it might allow a bit of space while we are under the same roof to see if the friendship can keep developing that seems to have started up in the last couple of weeks, or if its just a pity thing on his behalf (I couldn't handle the pity thing!)
