Is there any appropriate action that she would take that would warrant a reaction from me?
I think I can answer that. I would suggest yes, there are. I email my H quite a bit re: the kids or financial stuff. We work out pickup/dropoff times and such. If someone emails you and says what time are you going to drop off the kids or something, of course you email that back. Or if they need a copy of tax info to file taxes or something, you email that. Also, I used to always be the first one to email re: the kids and I realized that and stopped it. I found that he started emailing me re: the kids when I didn't initiate. At first at the last minute, but now he's basically taken over my role in emailing I think, and I only respond if there's a need.
But you don't ever do chit-chat or like in your last email you said you responded to her "hi". There's no need to respond to something like that. What you did was fine, but not going "nc" or dark. Keep working at it and you get gradually better at this, or at least that's what I found to happen.
Plus, have you read Divorce Remedy yet? That'll help too. Karen
He realized and took steps to disable IM so she can't see him online anymore.
Pain, have you read gForce's sitch? This guy turned things around in record time and was getting on with his life when his w realized that he wasn't kidding. He had taken a job out of state and was on that path, never wavering, when his w finally woke up. He did what he knew was right, even though it was so very difficult, and didn't knuckle under to his w.
He gained a lot of respect for that and this is what I'm talking about. Women don't respect weakness.
Here's his sitch, if you're interested. I found it so inspiring:
We don't have kids or any reason for business discussions.
It concerns me that she already tried to come back to me but I was messin around with someone so she pulled back. Afraid it's been done already and she won't try again.
He realized and took steps to disable IM so she can't see him online anymore.
I think that was good, but she can still prob. email him to check in or say hi. And I think you shouldn't respond to that. Disabling the IM was good too. I think it's a good thing you can go really dark. It's harder to do that when you have kids and financial stuff.
I've read in a couple books, DR included, about the whole pursuit/distancer dynamic. I really think Rs tend to follow that esp. ones that wind up here; usually one is kind of the pursuer and the other the distancer, and on the DB boards I think most of us tend to be the pursuers, at least in the beginning. And it's better to be more of the distancer or at least not the pursuer from a DB, healthy R perspective.
I do think gforce is a great example. He completely 100% dropped the rope and focused on starting a new life, moving, new job, etc. Completely planning on the M being over and starting over. Not a ploy but a complete dropping of the rope. I think that helped her snap out of it and realize what she was going to lose. Karen
