New - HELP! Tried the 180/Last Resort & Failed

[AloneAt35]

Progress Report on my 180s/LRT:

Well, its now been a week and a half since I started implementing DB techniques, I am now also reading DR. I had only a few opportunities to see my ex-partner, but I made the most of them as Michele says to do.

By not following him around, putting pressure, showing interest in the OW, and by always being upbeat about my own life (even though I actually feel HORRIBLE), I don't think I've brought him any closer to coming back to me, but it *has* changed the dynamic of the few interactions we had.

He is definitely more relaxed around me - to a degree. Our interaction time came in the car, which we still are sharing one day a week. At first, uncomfortable silence prevailed (after all, I am not initiating conversation), then I heard a song I liked and turned up the radio in an excited way. Suddenly he started chit-chatting, just small stuff. We got to our destination early and as I was about to get out of the car, he offered to drive around the block a few times so I wouldn't be so early to where I was going. I said thanks and he made a few more jokes as he drove and we chit-chatted like he was his old self.

That night after work I went to a party celebrating the end of the academic year where I teach. He has always accompanied me to this annual party, but he told me weeks ago he wouldn't feel comfortable there even though I had spent $100 on a ticket for him just before he dropped the bomb. At work I changed my clothes for the event, was dressed 'to the nines', I've lost 15 pounds from worry, I wore a tiny bit of make-up (unusual for me), and for the first time *I* noticed that I look *a little bit* different. He didn't seem to notice my change of clothes or appearance, but after I took a shower, he asked me a couple of times how the party was and what happened. He inquired whether I was "sad" to be there without him? I said no, it was a great time (it wasn't, it was actually pure misery for me, but I acted 'as if'). Somewhere in our conversation I commented on how I met a mutual friend's new boyfriend (her divorce was an ordeal and it was good to see her happy). My ex-partner then said, "Isn't she moving on kind of quickly???" I said, "golly, I don't think so, the divorce is final and her new boyfriend seems like an awfully nice guy." Then my ex-partner said, "You didn't get my joke, I was talking about myself."

This is his first acknowledgment that he is moving on at lightning speed by professing his undying love to a woman he supposedly met on the internet just a few weeks ago...(or, as I suspect, started an affair with briefly in real life just before jettisoning our twenty year relationship in the blink of an eye). I didn't take this comment as an invitation to discuss his new relationship - though he just LOOOOOVES talking to me about how perfect the OW is - gag! We chatted very casually a few more minutes about the party, and he asked me the same questions he had asked before...did I have fun, did I drink alcohol or 'get drunk' (a ridiculous question to ask because I am such a modest drinker and he knows that.) He was calling me by his nickname for me a lot during this period of questioning (something subtle that I've missed him doing since he dropped the bomb, so it was the first time I'd heard my pet name in weeks). Then we retired to our separate beds with him telling me he had to leave early in the morning because of the date with OW and he started checking his texts frantically. (The few nights he's actually come home, I have to listen to his phone pinging all night as new messages come in for him...he literally NEVER sleeps waiting for messages from her and it shows.)

The next morning, he was agitated, couldn't wait to get out of the house, quickly packed some of his clothes and left in a huffy mood (nothing to do with me, I assure you, I wasn't even interacting with him).

I haven't seen or heard from him since, and probably won't for another few weeks or until he needs to pick up mail or have me sign papers (since, as I've mentioned, he's selling our home and buying a new one for himself worth more than 4 times as much.)

I feel absolute terror that I have no idea when I will see him or hear from him again, he goes AWOL for longer and longer periods. When I was at the party I felt horrible, as if he has died and will never come back to me. My recently-divorced friend said he "probably won't." I feel like hope is the only thing that keeps me hanging on, and those moments that I lose hope are the MOST terrifying moments I have ever endured. If we had been legally married, it wouldn't be so easy for him to just disappear like this.

Please folks, tell me what else I can do???