I can only give you insight from my failure, unfortunately.
A few months ago, my wayward WAW did come to me and said she wanted to work toward reconciliation. I didn't appreciate how the whole man woman relationship thing really works. She wanted to know reconciliation was still an OPTION for her. I had totally pulled away and it scared her, and her anxiety was uncomfortable for her. Once that anxiety was reduced, as in "Ok, I can still get H back if I want him", her interest waned significantly.
I had pulled away from her, and I did have my own life going pretty well, but when she came to me showing interest in reconciliation, I thought "Ok, let's give this a try", and I went all in, believing she was all in too. She wasn't. It didn't take long before my interest in reconciliation overtook hers, and she walked again. This whole man woman relationship stuff is very different from what I always thought, and it's taking me time to accept its reality. Whereas my W does want someone who listens to her, and is devoted to her, she also needs that challenge and drama to keep her interest up. Very clear to me from talking to her that she is oblivious to that fact. When her interest wanes, she uses her intellect to justify why, and it'll seek out whatever little deficiencies in me or our relationship to do so. When her interest rises, she uses her intellect to justify that too, but it's all BS.
I spent six months barely speaking to her, barely looking at her, giving her absolutely nothing. The result? Her feelings and interest grew and grew, until she had to do what she said numerous times would NEVER happen, she asked me if I would consider reconciliation. She never once pointed out, or complained, or criticized me for ignoring her all those months. She justified it to herself "He needed to heal", "He had every right to treat me like that", etc. When I asked her why she now wanted me back, she even said, after six months of treating her like she was hardly even a person, "You're nice again, like when we first met". Wow. Her intellect is a tool used purely to JUSTIFY how she feels.
After I decided to go all in on reconciliation, I treated her awesome. I was charming and considerate, and had nothing but good times with her. But once her anxiety was reduced, her feelings dropped, and then her intellect searched for any reason to explain it, like "H will never forgive me for what I did" (everything I said and showed her indicated otherwise), "H can't express his love for me like I need" (I treated her with admiration, respect, and passion), etc.
As gucci and robx preach here, it's only their FEELINGS that matter. They will search and distort and exaggerate reality to explain and justify their feelings to themselves.
gr8, in response to your question, I know that these WAWs will hide their growing feelings, and portray business as usual for a long periods of time, before deciding to reach out. You are doing what I should have done. Make them pursue you, keep them in crisis to motivate growth in them. I think you did awesome when your W came to you, much better than me. So it's been a month. That's nothing in the big scheme of things. Trust me, she hasn't forgotten about you, or about what you said. When she approaches you again, she'll probably have something very interesting to say, about you, about the history of your M, about the SSM book you gave her. Something. Be prepared to just listen, and as L&L said, stick with your boundaries. If she stays on the straight and narrow, you can SLOWLY start to give her a little of your time and effort. Make sure you keep HER on the pursuing side. That's how I failed. I allowed the tables to be turned so I was back on the pursuing side, and my reconciliation failed.
Wow. Simply, WOW.
This post, and Robx's long one earlier this week about what HE did to turn his marriage around, are truly eye-opening stuff, and fly in the face of the whole "nice guy" thing that too many men try.
