Not sure where to start or end? WAW? #4

[john28]

Last night was a mild success I would say. We ate dinner together at a quiet restaurant (basically had the place to ourselves). We talked a lot about my hospital stay which she wasn't involved in, my men's group, and I took ownership of how I had treated her in the last few months. I let her know that regardless of everything I've always loved her, but until now wasn't able to love her in the way she needed to be loved.

The basic message that came across from her was that a lot had gone on and she had a lot of anger still built up for me and she was having a very difficult time letting that go. Oddly enough her words were, "And getting past all that is hard and I would have to get through that in therapy." That's the first time SHE has mentioned going to therapy for herself. I'm happy for her.

The other basic message was that she was afraid that too much had happened and not only was she not ready to date me, spend a lot of time with me, or anything like that, but she needed to get over some things if she could and would let me know when she was ready again, if ever. She also said that she was so very broken that she didn't want to be with anyone at all. I validated her feelings and told her that I wanted to love her in the way she needed to be loved - and I was here to meet her emotional needs.

I think she said at one point for me not to wait around on her and make my end goal to be with her, but just to be a better man. That if my end goal I was working towards was to be with her again, I would probably be let down because it isn't probable. That was difficult to hear, but I validated that with her.

She likened the fact that coming back to me was difficult because it was as if she went to a restaurant and got food poisoning. It'd be difficult to go back and eat at that restaurant ever again. I validated her feeling that way, but put in a nice, "Well, this restaurant is under new management." She kind of chuckled.

The subject of OW came up, and I told her that I was no longer talking with her and explained that whole situation to her. She said, "I don't care. We're separated, you can do whatever you want. I don't care." I told her that it was fine for her to feel that way, but I wasn't going out there to date anyone. Not only was I here to work on myself, but I am a man of integrity and I will be faithful to my wife as long as I can because that is the man that I want to be. She seemed lukewarm on that.

She cried a bit throughout all of this, as did I. At the end of dinner she said, "I'm glad I came tonight. I didn't really want to. But, I feel like for the first time in a very long time we're both on the same page." I guess my validating worked. She also talked a lot about her work and other things going on, laughed quite a bit, smiled too. I haven't seen her laugh or smile in months, and it made me happy to see her that way again if only for a few moments.

Some through dinner, car ride, we held hands. She dropped me off at my house because she needs the car today and I saw just how broken she really was. She's pretty far gone, people. I've done a lot of damage to her, and she's done a lot of damage to herself. Then when she was getting ready to leave she was crying a little and I reached up with my hand to wipe away a tear from her face and she moved away quickly and in a stern voice said, "Don't touch me!" It was very weird and out of character. I said goonight and she said ILY.

She has a lot of things going on with her that she needs to work through. Quite a lot. I'm feeling sad for her today.