I spent all night with XW..........on the phone

[AntoniaB]

I'm going to isolate two things from above: you mentioned that XW said she didn't care if you got married...then you said several times you just don't understand why she calls and keeps you on the phone so much if you were "as terrible" as she kept saying you were.

The obvious answer is what everyone has said already, that's she's yanking your chain. This is what she thrives on, she's done it for a year, and she's still doing it. She'll keep doing it until you put a stop to it.

But you still came back with saying you were confused by the behavior.

What I'm wondering is how big a part of you is telling yourself that her talking to you for that time in a nice way is some sort of evidence that she's thinking of giving you another chance. The reason I say this is that you have had a really consistent pattern of putting a ton of emphasis on any time she hasn't spewed, and you've kind of wondered if this meant that things were turning "in your favor." Sometimes I wonder if the reason you don't accept the obvious answer when it is pointed out by several people here is because you don't LIKE that answer, and you're wanting one of us to say, "gee, Tad, I think this means she's really confused about her feelings for you, maybe this means she's reconsidering..."

Just because she can play nice when it behooves her doesn't mean she's coming back. If you read the posts of people who are potentially reconciling, their exes are generally in depression and more or less in shock at their own past behavior, saying things about how they can't believe what they did, etc. Your XW is only in the beginnings of the whole "MLC journey", so to speak.

IF there is any chance in her future to "wake up", it can't happen if you keep so tied to her. She has to face the music. You're not letting her do it with these long conversations.

It's been a year, right? And not one boundary established from you yet. Until you start making and enforcing boundaries, you're at the whim of a crazy person who does not resemble the woman you were once with.