The WAW who stood still (can he catch up already?)

[vera be fierce]

H: I saw on FB you heard back about hospital tests if you don't think I'm prying would you tell me what they found out. if you don't want to discuss it just ignore this text

Me: haha why do you think I wouldn't discuss this with you? Actually they results they really need take longer to process. They called me with some other stuff (explained it more fully)

Do you think a part of you posted something vague on FB to test and see if you would get a message like that from him?

H:I just didn't want to force my nose in if you'd rather not tell me, that's all. (a bit of concern asked another question)

Me: respond to question, added in a bit more about what they found out.

NO RESPONSE it's been 20 mins since my last text

20 minutes isn't that long!

This really makes me angry for some reason that I'm trying to figure out. And I was really confused on how to respond. He basically says I want to find out how you're doing, I'm concerned but I know I have no right to be. Well that's BS in itself. If you say you're my friend then of course you have a right to be concerned. Even if we were both remarried I would think we'd still be concerned about the other's health.

So is his "uncomfortableness" more about his guilt in that he doesn't feel like he should have a right to be concerned because he has a GF?

Mindreading. It's possible that he feels that since the two of you are no longer a unit, you may not think he is on a need-to-know basis.

Are outside forces telling him he shouldn't be that concerned? I can't see his mom saying that or even his friends. But I could see a GF saying that because you'd be insecure that his concern was more than just friendly.

Mindreading! Don't do this to yourself.

Is it his own internal confusion....maybe he's feeling more emotion over this situation inside than he feels like someone in his position should so he's looking for validation from me IE: tell me that this is normal for me to be worried about you or tell me to F off.

I know all of this is mindreading but it upset me.

Yes, it's mindreading. Detach!

I never reassured him. I never said "of course I'd discuss with you if I found out anything" I didn't put in any emotion. I did say that something "hurt like hell" and that hopefully this treatment would work but I didn't confide in him emotionally like I did last week when I'd had days of no contact, seen her car on my road, then got some sympathy from him. I did say "wasn't ignoring earlier I was updating my phone and didn't see the text"

Not sure why you felt the need to explain what you perceived to be a delay in responding.

The no response upsets me too. I know he's at work. But I feel like he was worried about me, I gave him loads of info and he's like right that's good. But then do I expect the emotional support. He asked for facts, I gave him facts, and as a guy he sees that as the end of the conversation.

You are having expectations about him being emotionally supportive in your time of need. Maybe he needs more than 20 minutes to figure out how to properly respond. Maybe he did see it as the end of the conversation. Either way, your expectations seemed to have increased just based on the fact that he expressed some level of concern. Does that sound about right to you?

I was really conflicted in how to handle that. I don't want to play games or manipulate the conversation by being really distant. And I think in my sitch being a WAW trying to reconcile I think any distance hurts my cause.

I know the tension well. It's an odd situtation. But detaching a little isn't playing games or manipulating, it helps you emotionally handle these check-ins of his.

I do feel like he was putting me in a weird place. He was wanting me to reassure him that I would of course tell him everything important in my life or he wanted me to make it easy and slam the door on him.

Mindreading!

Actually the more I think about it this is a pattern of his. When he is unsure he puts himself in the victim position..."I don't have a right to know" "Just ignore this if you don't want to tell me" and I didn't RESCUE by reassuring. I took all the seriousness out of it starting the text with HAHA why would you think that and then didn't respond when he attempted to be dramatic.

So maybe I just did a big fat 180. And all those feelings he's got about feeling a tiny bit left out of my life...he's going to have to sort through all on his own.

It's good to break that cycle. Good for you. And you're also going to have to sort out why you had feelings in this exchange, too