WAW, not sure how to proceed...Part II

[dearme]

My wife came home a little tipsy last night from a 10 hour fishing trip/cruise sponsored by her work...ok, more than a little tipsy. I would say quite drunk. The alcohol must have gotten her words and emotions flowing, because we ended up having a pretty intense talk.

She told me that in her last independent counseling sessions, she had come to the conclusion that she knew she wanted to stay together at least until the end of the year, because she had realized that she wants to make this relationship work and she felt like she owed it to herself and me and the kids to give it at least that long to see if the feelings she's missing now would come back. She also said she's very scared that they won't, because there's a large part of her that's just completely emotionally cut off from me.

She mentioned all the stuff she's wrestling with right now, from the codependency and her feeling like she has no idea who she is or who she'll be once she gets the codependency managed, to the simple fact that part of her feels like she'll look like a fool for trashing me to all of her girlfriends and telling everyone she was getting a divorce, and then finding herself considering sticking things out and making an effort at saving the relationship. She also mentioned that she works with a couple of older women who had considered divorce earlier in their marriages, and they decided to stay and now found themselves just as unhappy in their 60's as they were when they were in their 30's, 40's, and 50's. My wife said she's terrified of finding herself in the same position. So she said she couldn't quite go as far as to say she was ready to commit herself to "us" quite yet. Another main factor is she said she's been used to living with a different version of me for 7 and a half years, and so isn't ready to let down her guard and fully believe that all the changes she's seen me make are going to stick. The changes she's seeing though are what's making her reconsider...she just never expected that when she told me she wanted a divorce, I would actually change. I think it's really thrown her for a loop. She said she has built up tons of walls to protect herself, and those walls aren't going to come down easily, but that she hopes that they will come down. While they're still up though, she said they prevent herself from feeling a lot of what she wants to feel toward me. She said the sexual attraction is almost completely absent right now, and that even though she sometimes feels like she wants to be close to and affectionate toward me, there are other times when she's overwhelmed with anger and wants to be as far away from me as possible.

She said that she loves me though (first time she's said it in 3 months), that I'm her babe, and that she doesn't want to lose our friendship or break up our family and that she really just wants us to work. Whether or not we will make it, she said she doesn't know, but she said she really hopes that she can figure her stuff out and that in doing so we can rebuild a better marriage. Part of her is worried, I think, that she's afraid healing her codependency will lead to her figuring out that she doesn't want to be married to anyone, not just me.

So, it was a conversation in which I didn't say too much. Just listened to what she had to say for the most part, although I did tell her I love her when she said it to me, definitely returned the kiss she gave me, and I told her it made me happy that she had decided she wanted to at least give it until the end of the year to see what would happen. This morning when we got up, I told her that I appreciated how honest with me she had been the night before, and I've left it at that.