Hey JR, Coach (hiya, coach, how are you?) is spot on. Despite what we believe when we love someone, doing something/anything based on trying to get another person's response to align with our hopes is just a way of keeping us tethered to a frustrating fiction - while also pushing that person away.
Flirting isn't about trying to establish something new with a new person, it's about remembering what's valuable in yourself - and what makes you feel charming, happy, playful and alive.
It took me a long, long time to understand what it meant to detach from my XW - but doing so helped me see myself and my situation with a lot more clarity. I think that's the value of detachment - of allowing our partner to go on his or her own journey, while we found our own strings to lead us through this labyrinth. Detachment lets a lot of the mind reading and paranoia fall aside, it enables us to live independently, not just of the judgments and expectations of another person - but also independently of the obstacles we set in front of ourselves when we try (all too desperately)to understand or predict what another person wants.
The funny thing is that detachment also works in a healthy relationship - it's that ability to be yourself and allow another person to be genuine to herself - it's a giving up of any effort to control another person - even if that control just comes in the guise of expectations and desires that another person see things our way.
Let your life be about you and your boys - continue to be a good, honorable man, and let your wife do what she has to do for herself. It may not turn out the way you hope, but if you find comfort in yourself, you will be fine no matter what.
