Deju vu, but new to the online forum...round 2

[mj144]

It has been a week since my last posting on my thread and it was a week filled with tremendous anxiety.

Tis the season to be stressed out!!! I am very relieved that Christmas is now a thing of the past. I was raised Jewish, so this is a holiday that is something that didn't have a meaning to me until I married and especially now that I have kids, of course. That being said, my Ws family lives here in Colorado and I have no family here, so my angst leading up to C Eve at the IL's house was off the charts. I wasn't sure if the stocking my MIL made for me would be hanging, but I did know that since they are wonderful people, although there would be a cloud over the evening, they would make me feel very welcome. I suppose the only way things would have been better was if my sitch wasn't what it was. Not only was my stocking hung, but I got a very generous gift from my IL's and my BIL & SIL even gave me a gift. It was a very pleasant, but a bit uneasy evening.

Then we get home, put the kids to bed and by the time they fell asleep and it was time to put their presents under the tree, my W also had fallen asleep. I woke her up and got the presents and started putting them under the tree. Well...unfortunately, I didn't realize that there was a method to my W's madness and she had the kids presents separated in 2 different bags and only some of them were tagged. By the time she came out, I had taken all of the presents out of the bag and she flipped since she didn't know which were which. She ranted and raved and was all pissed that she was going to have to unwrap and re-wrap the presents since they had to be set up in a certain way. Here I am trying to apologize and she makes me feel like I just committed some serious crime. I guess some good came out of it as after she got everything finally situated(without letting me help of course, geez!) she actually apologized for jumping my s**t. I of course in good DB manner thanked her for her apology and apologized myself again.

Christmas morning was a blast with the kids getting exactly what they wanted. There is nothing quite like the excitement of a 5 and 7 yr. old opening their presents on Christmas. Well, my wife didn't react quite in the same manner as my girls when she opened the gift I got her. It was a set of 3 stones each engraved with different words, 'Believe', 'Promise" and 'Forever'. The meaning is pretty self explanatory, but Forever has always been a special 'motto' of ours in reference to the song Forever by Ben Harper who we both discovered when we started dating 12 years ago and has extra special meaning. I have it tattooed on my chest with our wedding date and sign every card, letter and sentimental thing with. She barely looked at them, cast them aside and I wasn't quite sure she even saw the words. Well, they sat in their bag on an end table in the living room until she cleaned up last night. At which time, I found them on the stairs to the basement on a pile of other random stuff, not knowing where they will end up. At least she didn't toss them. I wasn't really expecting much in return for the gift other than it getting my point across.

We went to her sister's house for Christmas dinner. Again, a nice evening, albeit with the sitch at hand, a bit awkward. Now that I think about it, who else but me was it really awkward for? Probably only in my own head.

Well, in the spirit of the holiday's and having the feeling that being together as a family just felt right and the way it should be, I couldn't help myself. I knew my wife had or was planning on calling a mediator to set up a meeting to begin the process of dissolving the M. Figuring that I might be able to feed off of the good will of Christmas and the such, I decided to do a very un-DB thing. I approached my wife after the kids were in bed and asked her to talk. I not only asked her to talk, but I approached it as "Can we REALLY talk?" Asked her to open up and to not cut off the conversation as she typically would. She agreed to talk, but would not guarantee for how long. Well, we talked for almost 1 1/2 hours.

Although she confirmed her desire to divorce me, stating that she would be a fool to try again after everything we've been through, my emotional roller coaster, over-reacting and yelling at the kids, her raising 3 kids(me included) instead of just 2 and all of the things she felt about what got us to where we are, it was a great conversation. For the first time in a long time, it felt like we were working together to get to a common ground. I affirmed everything she said, telling her how much I understood where she was coming from and understood why she didn't believe in me right now and I just was able to listen and not argue back at her and I could see that for the first time in quite a while, she wasn't defensive, or cold or distant. Even though she was telling me all the reasons why things were wrong with us, I could see in her eyes that when I was talking, even though she said a few times that she heard it before, I feel like she was truly listening to me. She even told me that she doesn't love me any more and asked why I would want to be with someone who didn't love me. I just told her I understood and that it was something that I am going to keep trying to earn back from her.

I decided that since she was about to start the process of D, that I would suggest that I move out and asked her if I did, would she agree to slow things down and not move forward with anything. She agreed, offered me no promises, reiterated that she isn't doing it with the thought of reconciling, but that she would just slow down. I actually ended the conversation, not her!

Well, I guess I just bought myself some time. Now the real DBing starts. I can finally detach and GAL. It just isn't happening while I am still living here.

I found a possible place to rent today. I am meeting with a flight attendant tomorrow who has a room to rent that is in my neighborhood and she is not looking for any lease commitment. I told my wife about it tonight and we talked about some arrangements with the kids and I made sure we were still in the same understanding that she would slow down. She agreed, but again reiterated her stance, which I affirmed and assured her that I am doing this for myself with no expectations, only hope.

So now I am going to be starting the new year by moving out of my house and taking a huge leap of faith that this is the right thing to do in order to save my M. It feels counter-intuitive, but it also feels right in a strange way.

I know this posting is rather long, but I would really like to have feedback from the crafty veterans to let me know that I am doing the right thing.