Need Advice from the Experienced Folks on WAW

[GH3421]

After last night it's difficult to determine if I'm making any progress. We're both pretty tired these days, neither one of us is sleeping well. It's hard to sleep when you have so many thoughts and emotions running through you. As hard as I try, I can't just turn them off.

Anyway, my W accused me of playing games with her. She finds it hard to believe that I am committed to making changes in my life to be a better person. She questions why I couldn't do this earlier and why I couldn't do it for her—once again it's all about me. She now has to make the hard choice, either leave and break up the family or forgive me for deeply hurting her. In her mind, I get off easy. She leaves, she's the bad one who failed; if she stays, I win and get what I want. I don't know who you are anymore. This went on for about 5-10 minutes in small outbursts. During it I said nothing. I looked at her and listened.

We put our S to bed and she disappeared into another room for another half hour. She finally came out to where I was sitting and told me she's not sure where all that came from her. I told her that I expected conversations like these as your angry and you need to let it out. The only other thing I said was when I started making these changes 2 months ago I did it for you and ultimately for us. When it looked like you were leaving, I shifted the focus to me because I needed to change to become a better person and father to my son; and if you stay, the husband that you want and deserve. We left it at that and we said good night to each other and went off to our separate areas. When I saw her this morning she told me that getting some sleep helps you see things in a new light. When I asked her what she meant by that statement she didn't elaborate and merely said that she meant all the things she said the night before.

I know I'm not supposed to pursue but how do you balance pursuit against talking about these critical issues? On the one hand the fact that we are talking about all of this indicates to me that there is a part of her that is seeking understanding and trying to find a reason to stay. I know how she thinks and if she feels there is a light at the end of the tunnel she'll put the effort into trying to rebuild our M. My behavior has always been to be aloof and on the surface uncaring. This was a defense mechanism to maintain distance to mask my own self-esteem issues and fear of intimacy. On the other hand, if I stay detached and don't open up to her emotionally, I feed into our bad communication patterns and dynamics which will cause her to leave. I feel like I'm walking a tightrope without a net and I'm about to fall.