Had pretty good discussions yesterday and a decent followup today. We went over what we wanted if we did separate and she said she was sorry she got upset and attacked me the other day. Seems like we're both pretty much in sync, and I think we could co-parent successfully.
We also talked about how we're both confused right now...she doesn't know what she wants to do and I don't really know how she wants me to behave. When I detach, she starts giving me the 20 question routine, so that hasn't worked out too well. At one point we were talking about retrovaille, and she said, "if you believe love is a choice, just love me and let's go from there." I actually think that's a pretty good idea.
She really opened up on a couple of things...the first being, she is so scared that I will go back to being my old self. I think it's a trust issue, and that's fair. I'm not thrilled she's still on the fence in separating, but I do feel really positive about a lot of things in our relationship....we seem to have the best conversations now, really deep and the listening and understanding on both sides is generally really good (though we both still backslide a little). If this was our starting point 15 years ago, we'd have had 10 awesome years by now, so I'm pretty optimistic right now (though cautiously).
I've decide my approach going forward is:
1) continue to follow retrovaille, dialoguing, etc. 2) choose to love her and speak her love language 3) have a positive outlook, regardless of her behavior, be upbeat 4) discuss her negative behaviors with a focus on feelings
I'm hoping the negative behaviors becomes less of an issue....if they continue, I'm really not sure at this point I'll even mention them. When we're further down the road in our retrov program, we'll see.
