Bustorama-Thread 1

[bustorama]

Yesterday had open house for my 2 older D's at school. W met us there. I was more social than I was last year and talked with a bunch of people (moms and a few dads) that I had met over the summer while GALing and being out at activities with girls. W was kind of cranky about something that happened to her at coffee shop on way there. I validated and empathized. She eventually left for work, and I took girls for rest of day.

W met us at first soccer practice for D5, where I will be an assistant coach. Met other parents and had fun practice with girls. D5 loved it. W brought Subway sandwiches for us to eat. She was all stressed out when practice ended, said she was freezing. I told her I understood, yeah it was cold, especially since she hadn't been running around. She said she was going to stay while me and D5 ate. She kept complaining about how cold it was, I told her she could leave if she wanted to, but I wanted to eat with D5 there. She keeps saying how cold she is, then it seems that D2 is also getting cold, so I say yeah it's cold why don't we all go. I go to say bye to other parents, W says she doesn't want to and keeps leaving. W acting all agitated the whole way back to cars. Then she asks me if I am upset about something (projection much???). I say, no, I'm doing fine. I ask her how she's feeling and she says she is cold, still seems agitated.

In separate cars, she calls me as we drive away. She again asks me if I was angry about something. I tell her I am not angry, but I am a little annoyed that she is acting agitated towards me, and I'm not sure why. I ask her, "what's up?"

She says that she felt so uncomfortable at the soccer practice with all the other married parents and the perfect moms with their perfect lives. I validate and empathize, tell her I understand how she could feel that way and I could see it would be hard to stay there and socialize feeling that way. I say, but hey that's what our life is right now, and if anyone has a problem with our life that's their problem. I say everyone has problems of some sort and if anyone hassles her or makes her feel uncomfortable, I'm supportive of her.

Later W calls me at home and says she needs to get cupcake cookbook and cupcake tin from house. I say sure I'll leave it on front porch for her so it won't disrupt me getting the D's ready for bed. W comes into house (I apparently left garage door and back door open on way into house). I go downstairs with girls and she starts going off about door being open. I calmly tell her I will close the door, and I would not tolerate her speaking to me like a child. W's eyes start to well up, and I ask her what is up with her? What is going on? She says she is sad, it's not about you or wanting to get back together with you. I say that's fine, I can see she is upset, what's up? She says she is just sad and leaves. Kids start to melt down cause of her coming and going so quickly.

I call her on phone and tell her I am upset that she just came into the house and left the way she did and got the girls all upset, and I did not want her to just come into the house like that again when we agreed about the picking up of the pan. That I would never do the same thing to her at her apartment. W said again about the garage doors being open. She again sounds like she is losing it on phone. I ask her what is going on with her???? She says again she is sad about the married parents and us being broken up. She doesnt want to get back together with me cause she is still so angry at me and hurt. I tell her I understand how hurt and angry she feels, and I apologize for hurting her the way I did with my affairs. I tell her I will call her back after putting kids to bed and she agrees (this has never happened before where she wanted to talk about the EA's after talking about them for even 2-3 minutes).

When I call her back, we talk for about 30 minutes with me validating and empathizing with her hurt and apologizing for different ways that I had hurt her in my EAs. It is by far the longest that we've talked about them since they happened, and with neither of us yelling, just communicating. She tells me that she really feels she wants to get back together but she still has anger and the fear. I validate and empathize and apologize more, mention things I have done to make amends for hurting her (the infidelity books say doing this helps) and she says, yeah I have noticed lots of changes you've made. She says she feels closer to me and trusts me more, but she's not there yet. I mention both a specific MC I have found that helps with intimacy after infidelity that might be useful for us and also bring up the possibility of a retrouvaille weekend. She says she is not ready for that yet, and she also wants to do more healing her way. I tell her I understand and thank her for sharing her feelings with me.

So, from our talk, I really think the discomfort with physical intimacy isn't the gay best friend thing, but the I'm still hurt and angry thing. I saw some good signs in our talk -- that she said she felt closer and safer and wanted to be with me, that she didn't start raging/lashing out/crying even when talking about the EA's directly and could talk about it (so her hurt is a little less), and I was able to communicate with her how sorry I was for hurting her, some of the amends I had made and some possibilities for future healing, without doing it in a begging or pleading fashion. I respected her feelings not to do MC or retrouvaille now and didn't push them at all, just threw them out to her as options for her to empower herself to heal.

These are some of the R talks I think we have to have every now and then towards reconciliation. For now, I will keep focusing on being a fun, attractive, funny, and safe Bustorama - try to make the positives of being with me even more attractive than her fears of being hurt again. Thoughts?