Definitly food for thought on that "moving target" part. As I had anticipated, my wife was in a good mood today around me. She's showing a pattern of "good moods" around me when she vents on me. Hmmmmm.....

If it works now, will it continue to work that way? It's a huge amount of pressure off of her when she lets me have it. I can see it. She cries some. I can see her shedding layers of pent up frustration. It's good for her now, but not sure for how much longer.

I do want to engage her more frequently this way. The more she lets it out the better she seems to feel. I also get more opportunities to test my own sense of self worth and confidence. I also get to "listen" to her - let her speak and maybe open her up to sharing and trusting a bit more.

I'm not speaking of cornering her or coming at her with "tell me I'm worthless for you". I'm just saying that I'm interested in finding ways to provide her the opportunity to vent at me. My distance with her is nothing new for the past 10 years, I've had trust issues all my life. So detaching from her is same old me, but pursuing her is pushing her away in frustration. The difference maker that I'm seeing right now is "listening" to her. Something I haven't done before. I'm very interested in giving her the stage and microphone and seeing and hearing what she has to say without interruption. I do believe the results are quite positive and if I can find an underhanded way to make a third test of my experiment happen, we shall have more results.

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Another thing I've noticed. She's talking to people now and taking them up on their advice on things. Not "leave him" type stuff, but "he's a good guy, talk to him" stuff. She doesn't feel comfortable with it because I think she expects me to get defensive and interrupt her as usual.

I'm not 100% into this advice stuff at all. Her family and I are taking the approach of just giving her time and space to sort it out. Her family has expressed their dismay at her treatment of me and have come to me with their support. I've not talked about this at all with my wife. i do not want to cause a rift. I also do not make it a habit of talking with my wife's family as this is my fight. I'm the first to be blamed for all that wrong with her and I expect to be the last person forgiven. As for those of her friends that don't know me very well, they all "assume" that I'm moping about and depressed. They couldn't be further from the truth so I do not much appreciate their efforts to provide advice and support to her in that I think they are counter productive.

***DISCLAIMER***
I am not a glutton for punishment. I do not harbor resentment towards my wife. I do not cry or get bent on hearing the things my wife says to me. I am not her doormat, nor am I her whipping boy. I no longer fear my wife ( her leaving me ) and I don't believe much of what she says. I have no fear of believing one word of her critisizms of me. I see opportunity in engaging her about her feelings, because I can see she hasn't challenged her feelings about me, only accepted them at face value. I want her to tell me every damn day that she doesn't love me and doesn't want to be married to me. I know in the depth of my soul that she will one day "hear" what she's saying to me. When she does, it's all upwards from there.

I've already hit my rock bottom a few months back. I'm all upwards since then. Thank you all for your insight.