WAW Using God III

[pigskin]

Journaling:

A positive turn in my sitch, although actions speak louder than words, so I remain guarded.

Had dinner with W last night. Wanted to ask her about what she had written in her mission journal regarding our situation. Simply opened by asking "what were you thinking as you wrote about the uncertain future "married to pigskin or divorced?"

Out came a lot, which I just listened to. Some was matter of fact some mixed with emotion. A few highlights/quotes:

--She admitted she thinks about our situation every day

--She said she questions her thinking and sometimes thinks, "What am I doing? I had it good! Why am I trying to find something different?"

--"I thought the other day about when the kids come home from college. Who's house would they come home to?"

--It kills me to hear D say "I miss Daddy". Or "Why can't we stay here longer" (The kids don't like the transition from parent to parent)

--Lots of stuff prefaced by "When I think about coming back..." I was sure to interject that it is not just something she decides to do and the doors fly open. I told her that I would have to determine if I wanted her back, to which she nodded.

--She noted that I have been getting better with things that she had issues with before, and she has been genuinely touched by a couple of them.

One thing that still sticks in her mind is her belief that we could have a "fine" marriage, but not a "great" marriage, regardless of whether we put God at the center. I told her that I believe that if you invite God into your marriage, He will make it better than you could possibly imagine. She seemed to think I was implying that there would never be challenges, which was not the case.

There was a point where she became upset with something I said (me questioning her faith, which as I tend to do, I may have gone overboard with) and got up, put her shoes on, and was about to leave. I remained seated and politely asked her to sit down again, that this was no way to discuss differences (stomping off is how she often handled disagreements before, as she has a hard time debating things with me). She said "If you want to talk, you come over here."

I said "Please sit down and finish the conversation. This is not how adults deal with disagreement." And she sat, and we continued the conversation.

Later on I asked her what I could do to help her. With everything. Her depression, her view that a reconciliation would be more likely to be just OK at best, etc. She said "Stop picking on me and making me feel like I am a horrible person."

I said OK. But asked her to understand that I am frustrated with our sitch and that sometimes comes out in dealing with her.

At one point I posed the question, "Do you want to divorce?"

Her answer: "No. It would be horrible."

Now all of this is actually a new line of thinking from her. For the first time, she did not bring up past hurts, did not rewrite our past as "miserable" ("I had it good" was the first time I have ever heard her admit that since the beginning of this whole ordeal). Did not try to say "the kids will be fine, kids are resilient". And even admitted that our marriage could be "good". A small crumb, no doubt, but I believe differently if I could just get us to reconciliation.

Perhaps this is a small step there, perhaps not. But I'm looking for actions and genuine 180s on her part. I am still comfortable with this going either way.