WAW Using God II

[pigskin]

Journaling:

Cutting to the chase: My W and I agreed to go on a date.

I'm not reading too much into this, and I plan on taking it waaaaay slow.

So how in the hell did this come about? Much like the way sausage is made; not pretty but the end product is pretty good.

W stopped over to drop off the weekend laundry from the kids' visit. She took the opportunity during some small talk at the kitchen table to segue into discussing her desire to change the kids' visitation schedule.

I listened to her proposal, she asked me to consider it, and take some time to think about it if I needed to. I told her simply "no". I like the current schedule that we both agreed to, and secondly I have no incentive to agree to an alteration or even compromise proposed by her since she has not honored any of our prior agreements. At which point I brought up the most recent violation of the past two weeks exposure of the kids to the OM.

There was a lot of talk after that, so I will do my best to summarize some key points and words said:

-- W viewed my going "dark" (not her words but she was addressing those tactics) as me completely rejecting her reaching out to me.

-- W says even though I have not asked her about it, she has cut off contact with OM with the exception of a phone call in December and a lunch last week. The lunch was her giving up on me after her "reaching out" showed I had no interest. She touched a lot on emails she sent when she was on vacation (which I documented in earlier posts) that I did not respond to.

She also mentioned that she had no idea the OM would be at the two events over the last 2 weeks. She said that one of the people from Saturday's event said the OM hadn't been there in months.

-- She stated "I have always loved you and my love has never changed."

-- In referring to the early days following the bomb, she said through tears "You should have fought for me".

-- She was angry that I "did nothing" to show her I loved her or cared for her during the time she said she agreed to cut off her EA and moved to her apartment. I told her that when she violated the NC boundary after agreeing to it, I just assumed she was back in her full blown EA. I said I am not going to pursue you or buy you gifts or write you letters when you have given your heart to another man. I have way too much self respect for that. Besides, you said you needed to get away from both of us to figure yourself out. I was giving you the space you asked for.

-- She mentioned our kids said things this weekend like "Why do you and Daddy hate each other? I want you to come back home and be married to Daddy again."

-- I told her she did not see acts of pursuit (not the term I used but DBers know what I mean) from me because at no time did she indicate she wanted to try reconciliation. She said "Why do you think I reached out to you when I was on vacation?" I told her I was confused by that since a couple of weeks earlier she told me she has no hope for us as a couple. She said she felt "deflated" when she reached out and got no response, and now is no longer interested.

-- I told her I have always been open to reconciliation if she was open to it as well, under one condition: all OM contact ceases. She said emphatically "I DID that! What more did you want me to do?" I told her she never showed any indication of wanting to reconcile. Then she went back to the emails sent from vacation.

She's a very confused woman dealing with depression and some hard emotion, that's for sure. I empathized and validated her a lot. She made some vague statements that referenced the future as if we would still be together. Sometimes she was just all over the place.

Saying she considered her vacation emails "reaching out" and in so many words my lack of response shot her down and killed that interest seemed like a manipulative tactic and I wasn't going for it.

Toward the end, I stated matter-of-factly "I have always been open to trying to reconcile under the condition of zero OM contact. If you are open to trying, we can start by going out sometime. Are you open to that?"

She replied "yes".

She took offense when I reiterated a zero contact reminder as she was leaving, and I probably harped on it too much. She was mad and rather childishly said (through tears) "OK, I'm not interested in going out now. For just that reason."

She feels she has done a good job of not contacting the OM. Given this she does not want to live under a police state where if she is out somewhere and the OM happens to show up, she's screwed. "I don't want to live that way."

I told her I don't consider that inappropriate contact and would never treat her that way. You know what is inappropriate and what isn't. She nodded her head at this.

So I guess I beat that dead horse once too much. She seemed sincere in her statements about NC. I just assumed that she was business as usual in the EA.

I apologized and we hugged, so we got past that. Now I am going to plan a date of some sort.

Unreal turn of events. Yesterday I was a million miles from any hope of reconciliation. Today my wife accepted a date.

I gained a lot of strength from one of the hymns at church yesterday. I will post the lyrics if I can find them.

Like I said, I will take this really slow. But I am going to take some time and thank God for this small step forward. He really can reach even the hardest of hearts.