Piecing is almost harder than before...

[Bolt]

In my situation, my W and I were talking. Now she is in a much different place than your W. She is working really hard. She alludes all the time that she does love me and cares for me. She is positive and does think we can get back to a happy M.
But the other night she said "who knows what will happen with our marriage." That kinda bugged me because she hadn't said that in a long time and all her other statements about our M were positive. It kinda showed me that the road is long indeed.

Yeah, it's that last part that gets me too. "I'm not sure it will work out." Well, I'm not sure I won't get ran over by a truck when I walk across the street but I'm not going to PLAN for it.

I'm seeing a pattern for piecing.

Once you get the W to stop talking D, you still have to give them space because they're not necessarily talking about the R either. They want to make it work but aren't sure what to do and aren't sure if it will work.

We as the spouse, has to give them space to figure it out before we can move forward. Who knows how long that will take? That's the part that is the hardest for us. Some days we feel that they are close to talking but then others it seems they're one foot out the door.

I think once they get to that place of talking and actually WILLING to do the work, that's where things can get good. BUT it is also where our expectations need to stay away also. Keep working forward but not looking back.

After that, I'm not sure...I'm nowhere close to that yet. BUT I do feel that knowing is more than half the battle. I now see (hopefully) that if I'm patient and let my W figure things on her own (not from my controlling) she will want to work on things.


The HARD part is working on myself on the mean time. I think once we come to terms with the fact we can't change the S but can change ourselves, it works better.

I'm trying to make myself happy but it is hard when the W isn't happy. When she's happy, it does make me happy. That in turn allows me to find things that make me happy as well...

(that may be wrong but that's where I'm coming from...)