I can't understand why your W comes over for dinner if she is so pi$$ed off at you. As my kids say whatthe.
Good point. Correction: since they were coming over for boxes, I extended dinner invite. Wife e-mails "no" and after several more emails me-her-stepson I incorrectly thought they were staying so I cooked.
Wife said, "I hope you're not cooking for all of us." Oops. But they stayed.
I believe my wife is becoming pi**ed at the brutal reality of her situation. But she's still full steam ahead with D.
Gardener
"My soul, be satisfied with flowers, With fruit, with weeds even; but gather them In the one garden you may call your own." Cyrano deBergerac
Guess what I've learned... mums that are planted don't get knocked over in the wind. Go figure!
Use all that thinking for you.. not trying to guess what her motives are. Mr. Nice Guy still makes dinner. If you want to make dinner, do. No expectations, no intentions.
How do YOU think the improvements look? Fishing for attention from her is a no go.
The cat thing is tough because you really loved that cat. Look at your options. Now that you've made the break do you want the cat in your life? After all, you did give her YOUR cat so she wouldn't be lonely.
Oh yes.. I have a new term for my gardening abilities... "dump landscaping". Yes.. yours truly had placed leftover slate to make a sorta walkway over a barren area. Add two barberry bushes, some stone work to handle copious water flow, two extra bags of mulch.. voila! I won't show it to you but it looks better than what was there!
Be your best friend. Focus on what is good, healthy, for you. Figure you out, not her. If you're upset, angry.. just say what's bugging you. Avoid getting caught up in passive/aggressive, bottled up anger situations.
I'll tell you, at times lately I feel like venting or journaling and think that what I put down is going to seem so,,,I don't know.
Been reading Antlers' posts on Coach's Detachment Thread and I feel his pain. It sounds like mine today. At one point this afternoon, I actually said out loud, "I can't believe she's gone!" And then I think it's 11 months since the bomb, 10 months since she moved out, 5 months since she asked for D and despite changes and improvements and progress in other areas, my heart is still exactly where it was 11 months ago.
A month ago at the mediator's, I thanked her for 16 great years, for entrusting me to help her raise her two wonderful kids - my wonderful kids, and one or two other things that I don't remember. Now, I'm a romantic. I'm sentimental. I get misty-eyed easily like she does/did/used to. I'm misty-eyeing right into those cold dead eyes of hers. The stone face. And I'm thinking: she used to admire my sentimentality and now I can see she probably sees it now, talking briefly but from my heart, as weakness.
And I know - I know - I still miss (achingly) and still pine for a person who truly no longer exists. That person left, checked out. "Elvis-has-left-the-building."
And there's still so much I don't know. Will never know (we haven't had one R Talk since February). So many things that I don't even want to go through listing them here.
You are the other part of me I am the other part of you. We'll work through With never a thought of walking out
Ruth Harms Calkin
That was us. We would always do - could not not do - whatever it took. So how, how, how can the very first time she talks to me about not being happy, fulfilled, feels us growing distant, whatever it was with four words: "I'm getting an apartment."?
I don't know. I just don't know. Bad day.
Gardener
"My soul, be satisfied with flowers, With fruit, with weeds even; but gather them In the one garden you may call your own." Cyrano deBergerac
Sorry to hear you had a very rough day. It won't help to hear that it's part of the process. What you write is what YOU felt, what YOUR reality was. Many times relationships drift on belief rather than action.
Your wife has to have a wall up with you to go where she's going. And the rug has been pulled out from beneath you. Emotional chaos could reign.
In my case it felt like I was at a beach swept away by a riptide, panicking then swimming horizontally to the beach. Eventually I was able to stand on my tippy toes. The waves would slosh on my face as I gulped to breathe and try and grip the silty sand. I learned to bob with the waves, keeping afloat with a slight jump to take me over the crest. Ever so gently more of my body was exposed as I headed to shore til I found myself on the beach exhausted with wobbly legs.
You're a wonderful man. You do good things. You love with all your heart. Give some of the love and caring your share so generously with others to yourself.
You have sort of been through this process before, albeit with a different goal in mind. Not saying it doesn't hurt again or that you should write off your M. But, whatever will be will be.
You know that each day gets a little easier until one day, it's a lot better. You just have to keep your head in the right place and thrive, don't just survive, as Coach says.
