round 2

[someguy1233]

heartbroken- thanks. I did get some sleep. Today is a new day.

isittoolate- I started reading your sitch last night. It's rough. I don't plan to move out. If she wants that kind of space she'll need to put in the effort to make it happen. This is my home and my son.

[someguy1233]

Last night she came home from being out with her friend and was happy. She bought some new makeup. Her friend bought her an early birthday present: lingerie for there photo-shoot in a few weeks. I'm trying not to look into this, it doesn't do any good.

This is reoccurring:
She goes out with friends and returns happy.

She fell asleep while intentionally touching me.

She was happy and cheerful while getting ready for work this morning. She even playfully bumped me with her hips while standing at the bathroom sink.

I ironed a shirt and dressed nicely for a change. She noticed and said I look good and asked why I was dressed up. I said "no reason" with a smile. She again said I was acting weird.

It's another day on this roller coaster.

[ben11]

I ironed a shirt and dressed nicely for a change. She noticed and said I look good and asked why I was dressed up. I said "no reason" with a smile. She again said I was acting weird.

How do you normally look?

[someguy1233]

I ironed a shirt and dressed nicely for a change. She noticed and said I look good and asked why I was dressed up. I said "no reason" with a smile. She again said I was acting weird.

How do you normally look?

I used to dress up every day. A nice shirt/pants and often times a tie.

My new office is casual. I wear normally wear t-shirts and jeans.

[ben11]

I ironed a shirt and dressed nicely for a change. She noticed and said I look good and asked why I was dressed up. I said "no reason" with a smile. She again said I was acting weird.

How do you normally look?

I used to dress up every day. A nice shirt/pants and often times a tie.

My new office is casual. I wear normally wear t-shirts and jeans.

Ahh okay. I thought maybe you were dressing like a slob or something, and was going to give you the obvious advice to dress the way you do when your wife compliments you. Carry on good sir!

Keep in mind, it never hurts to look better than the people you work with

[someguy1233]

Firstly, I had my first session with a DB Coach on Thursday. I felt strong after hanging up the phone. I hung up with a plan to GAL and felt good about myself. For those reading my sitch, if you’ve been debating making the call to DB… DO IT!

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Now for my update:
The roller coaster continues on.

To recap… in the last month W has essentially said ILYBNILWY and wasn’t sure what to do. Then said maybe we could make M work and it wasn’t so bad, but was somewhat apprehensive. Then W went back to essentially ILYBNILWY as of Wednesday/Thursday (4 days ago).

This weekend was another upswing. On Saturday (April 28) I woke up to W wanting to talk. She had multiple points during the talk. I feel like I was given a to-do list to help make our relationship work! Her main points below:
*She apologized for being a “crazy person” the last few weeks and said she’s done being “crazy.”
*She again wants us to schedule a Mexico vacation to help us reconnect.
*She wants to work on us and wants us to find a new MC.
*She said things aren’t really so bad, but our main problem is our sex life. (My thoughts: We had a baby one year ago… I hear this is normal, but we need to figure out how to fix this….)
*She needs more physical closeness, even if sex isn’t the goal.
*She needs to be told she’s attractive.
*She needs more planned fun activities together.
*She said I’ve been great while she’s been “crazy.”
*She wants to figure out HER problem and learn why she always runs at the first sign of trouble or difficulty. This has been a life-long problem. Her therapist thinks she has OCD thought tendencies. She believes she finds one thing wrong with the relationship and that is all she can focus on until it is blown up into a giant deal in her mind. She wants to learn how to stop messing with relationships and just enjoy them. She also has a pattern of “opening up” to the wrong people… typically another male… (My thought: This “opening up” causes the emotional attachments she has with other men, which may be amplifying our issues each time we have a problem.)
*It’s easier for her to work on our M than it is for her to be with our S half the time if we split.
*She said her divorced friend admitted that her marriage probably wouldn’t have ended if they had been such good friends like my W and I are.
*She said she’s not drinking for the next week. She believes she’s been trying to drown her sorrows in alcohol and spending too much time at the bars and too much time away from home.
*She wants us both to have some hobbies outside of each other. She thinks this may help strengthen our relationship as we’ll have info/stories to share.

----

The weekend went well. She gave multiple hugs and kisses. She didn’t say I love you, but this might be a start. I’m not going to push the words. On Saturday she did ask sadly, “do you still love me?” I think she was looking for validation… She’s also taken to kissing me on the cheek. This is different; she’s always been a lip kisser….

Saturday night I grabbed a movie and asked her if she’d like to join me on the couch. She accepted and cuddled up next to me. Afterwards she said it was really nice and she enjoyed being home with me.

On both Saturday and Sunday she suggested we do a “Couples Table Topics” card. This was an activity the MC had suggested to help create more interesting conversation. We actually did the activity and it was fun to talk about something other than work or chores.

We had my family over for brunch on Sunday. I dressed up nice. She noticed and said I looked hot. I sprayed cologne and she said it smelled like, “sexy man.” Later in the day she repeated, “wow. You look REALLY HOT.” That night she initiated sex.

Last night she slept snuggled up to me the entire night. This morning she said good morning and gave me a kiss. She wanted another kiss before leaving for work.


I’m happy this morning. I feel strong. But at the same time, I’m trying to remain grounded. She’s had upswings before and then crushed me with another ILYBNILWY bomb. I’m hoping this doesn’t take another turn back to ILYBNILWY, but I need to be cautious. I’m listening to the audio book of “The 5 Love Languages.” I’m also going to continue to GAL. I need to be strong in case this is just another hill on the roller coaster.

[figgeroni]

do not let her control your emotions...they are yours so if you are feeling good

don't let her control them

[isittoolate]

SG1233: Great Update!

These rules from Accuracy make sense:

Here are my rules for going forward:

1) Don't assume that everything is now ok: W views you like a pent-up dam full of emotion. She's afraid that being nice to you is going to pull the plug and wash her away, and she doesn't want that. Continue to assume that W wants space and don't start talking about reconciliation or R discussions until she starts initiating them.

2) Don't escalate: If she says she had a nice time, don't say ILY. If she holds your hand, don't hug her. If she hugs you, don't kiss her. You can reciprocate, but don't take anything up a notch. Let her lead.

3) Expect hot and cold: Your W will "try on" being nice to you and letting herself believe that everything will be good. Then she'll catch herself, worry, and suddenly go ice cold. Don't take that personally, it's natural and part of the process. Don't comment on it, pretend you didn't notice, just roll with it.

4) Manage your expectations: It's tempting to get hopeful when you start to see positive signs. That hope can create expectations that then lead to disappointment, and that disappointment is very transparent. Expect nothing that you'll go out and be relaxed and try to have fun and that's it.

It can be hard to find neutral things to discuss. My DB coach suggested looking up "conversation starters" before the date so you'll have some interesting topics to get things going if you feel things are slowing down.

Accuray

[someguy1233]

SG1233: Great Update!

These rules from Accuracy make sense:

Here are my rules for going forward:

1) Don't assume that everything is now ok: W views you like a pent-up dam full of emotion. She's afraid that being nice to you is going to pull the plug and wash her away, and she doesn't want that. Continue to assume that W wants space and don't start talking about reconciliation or R discussions until she starts initiating them.

2) Don't escalate: If she says she had a nice time, don't say ILY. If she holds your hand, don't hug her. If she hugs you, don't kiss her. You can reciprocate, but don't take anything up a notch. Let her lead.

3) Expect hot and cold: Your W will "try on" being nice to you and letting herself believe that everything will be good. Then she'll catch herself, worry, and suddenly go ice cold. Don't take that personally, it's natural and part of the process. Don't comment on it, pretend you didn't notice, just roll with it.

4) Manage your expectations: It's tempting to get hopeful when you start to see positive signs. That hope can create expectations that then lead to disappointment, and that disappointment is very transparent. Expect nothing that you'll go out and be relaxed and try to have fun and that's it.

It can be hard to find neutral things to discuss. My DB coach suggested looking up "conversation starters" before the date so you'll have some interesting topics to get things going if you feel things are slowing down.

Accuray

Those are some great rules. Thanks for reposting them!

[someguy1233]

Tuesday 5/1 Journaling-

She came home from her personal counseling session last night. She was in a good mood. She even called on her way home to see how things were going.

She immediately wanted to talk about our relationship and ideas to make it better. She said her therapist made some suggestions about how we can handle one of our common fights:
When she gets angry about something small, I get annoyed and angry. It becomes a vicious circle. She also reacts the same way when I get angry.

He suggested the person that isn’t ORIGINALLY angry needs to catch their emotion, grab the other person’s hand and ask what they can do to help. This will, in theory, either strike up a conversation or assist with diffusing the other person’s anger.

They also talked about Love Languages . W confirmed my thinking that she likes words of affirmation and acts of service. But I believe there may be a specific dialect that I need to hone in on. Or perhaps I need to find some new words/acts as the old ones have become stale.

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Our Son couldn’t go to daycare today due to a slight fever. I immediately took care of finding backup daycare and decided to work from home to help out. This isn’t my normal behavior. Typically she’d work on finding daycare first. The funny thing is I didn’t even think about doing it; I just jumped into action!

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She kissed me goodnight. And blew me a kiss on her way out the door this morning.

Tonight I’m going out with a friend after I help get our son to bed.