WAW, Filing as Fast as Possible

[aeolianchaos]

Alright - I said I'd update this last night, but I was too tired to write it out.

Yesterday W both stopped by and called while I was in the shower. I had no idea she was going to come by so I missed it and called her back. It was regarding her being removed from the lease and some info on her cat's shots. I told her that I would take responsibility for dropping off the paperwork @ the landlords, and e-mail her cat's vet record info - both of which i did within 12 hours.

We ended up having another 45 minute conversation. Again, challenging but felt more honest than it's been in a while (like, 1+ years).

I told her I have been wondering why she says "I don't hate you.. I don't wish you any ill.." She said that she says that because she still feels like she really likes me a lot, and that I am a great guy but she doesn't want to be married to me. I told her I wondered if she actually does have a part of her that hates me or is really angry with me, as I could see why she would be justified to feel that way about a lot of things over the past few years. She said that she does have a lot of anger. I let her know that I felt she had a lot of good reasons for her anger and if she ever needs to express it towards me I understand. She said she didn't feel like it would be appropriate and I said alright.

** This anger thing is kind of an interesting topic for me -- she has always had a lot of trouble expressing herself directly towards whomever she is upset with, and tends to internalize it and make herself into a victim. Many times I've been the 3rd party to which she expresses her victimization. Its really interesting to me to consider that perhaps she is sort of stuck in a place of being uncomfortable acknowledging and moving through her anger and into a higher emotional state. I'm sure its more 3 dimensional than that, but I think there may be something to this understanding.**

Along similar lines, we did talk about some of the ways in which I was very contrarian and defensive when she would make attempts to communicate to me in the past. I acknowledged this and said that I know that the way I argued with her in the past had made her feel intellectually overwhelmed and was hurtful, and that I regretted it as it doesn't really represent the kind of man I want to be.

I did tell her that by saying 'my mom says you...' completely took away her unique power as my S to express herself to me. She said that she did that because that way she could blame her mother rather than risk me being angry with her. She said the things she was saying were coming from her but she didn't want to say them directly. I told her I appreciated her honesty about this.

She says she feels worried or expects that I want to lash out at her. I told her that no, I don't want that at all. I want the opposite. I told her that I am trying to see her for the parts that I believe are real - I brought up some examples of this: her love of trees, animals, fall, apple picking, modern art. To me, these are memories and thoughts that seem to be much closer what I believe are 'essential' elements of who she is. This seemed to really upset her - she didn't say anything for a while. She said those things are real. Then she said that this was really difficult and hard for her. I asked her why she was choosing something that was making her life harder - I didn't see that any of the problems we have had are insurmountable. She said thats true, but it takes two people who are willing to work on a marriage, and she isn't willing. I said that is up to her. She said that she felt like it needed to happen and that she was just tolerating me while finding happiness elsewhere for the past year. I asked her if there was ever a time when that wasn't the case, where she was happy about being married to me and wanted to create a life together. She said yes, and felt like when we got married there was a lot of potential there. I didn't dig further on this one. I'd love to hear any viewpoint on it that someone might have.

She said something about how she knows I'm trying to get my life together and figure out what I want to do with myself, and how she wants to help me and support me in doing that. I told her that by divorcing me, she is kind of doing the opposite of that.

She seems to be becoming more aware of the fact that the dysfunction in our marriage was a team effort and that she was relying on me in many ways to make her feel good about herself and she used the word codependence, which I agreed was an appropriate description (although I'd rather not pathologize things in that way). I think that in many ways I did the same thing - looking for her to validate me as i felt pretty worthless for a long time. She has expressed how she is really working on worrying less about what people think of her.

She said she still hasn't forgiven herself for what she did. I told her I hope she can find a way to do that.

She said she was concerned about giving me mixed signals by having this conversation - I told her that I was just responding to what she was saying, and wasn't reading into it. I did mention that, on the topic of mixed signals, that I felt like she had gotten the idea that I would never forgive her for what she did and it would be held over her head forever - I told her that absolutely wasn't the case and I believe forgiveness is a vital part of a happy life. I believe this is true, but I also believe that a big part of why she chose to leave is because she feels like she would never be forgiven.

Somehow the question of 'best friends' came up again. I did say that I had felt that our friendship would have been the foundation we would have rebuilt our marriage on.

We talked about some other stuff - she feels like people are basically cutting her off as a friend because of what she is doing, and that it is something she feels like she needs to accept as a consequence of what she has done. I did start to wander into 'fixer' territory here but backed off after saying "well I don't know if thats what person X really meant.."

Towards the end of the conversation I told her "I don't know if you feel the same way, but I feel like these conversations, although challenging, have been more honest than anything we've said to each other in the past 1.5 years. She agreed. I then told her that I appreciated her courage and recognized how hard it might be for her to be truthful without any guarantee of how I might respond to her. She said "well it's not like i have anything to lose." i asked her if that's how she views all her relationships with people. Not sure that was the best question..

At some point I did say something like "I guess maybe we just have different values - I think that 10 years of relationship deserves a little work before giving up" - it was manipulative of me, but in a way it does reflect some of my feelings, that things are worth working for and there is nothing wrong with trying to do better. I just don't know what to say - I do feel like it does deserve more than just saying "the tank is empty, I give up!!"

There was a lot of good that came out of it - did I probably break a lot of DB 'rules'? Maybe. I don't know.

I am actually very happy to see her (apparently) developing some insight into what was really going on and perhaps even developing a more grounded sense of self in her individual work. Despite it all, I do love her and I am happy to see her thoughts and thinking evolving into something a little more substantial - it feels to me like perhaps a layer or two of that personality onion might have been peeled back. Perhaps there may be a time when fear and hurt don't dominate and we can even resolve something. I worry about developing false hope.

But. BUT. I still have to remember that she is Divorcing me and right now is processing the possibility that she may have to pay spousal support - something she I assumed I would not ask for - which will cost her a fair chunk of change. The fact that we have talked more in the past week than we have in the past 1.5 months may be reflective of her desire to gain sympathy. I don't know, but I'm cautious.