Piecing - Round 1

[Denver_2010]

Denver,
Just reading your post about the timeline and how dark you were at different times and I really appreciate how it worked for you, but I do have one question. How dark is dark?

When I say 'dark', for me it always included not initiating contact. That is #1. It generally included being very, very short in my replies to her initiating contact. To the point where some vets thought that I was being rude. I was polite, but just very short, business like. For example: W would text me and give me some useless information about something just to have a reason to contact me, and then she would throw in a 'how are you doing?'... my response might be, "thanks for the info. I'm doing well. Thanks."

So not only was I not initiating contact, but I was trying to put the onus on her to keep the conversation going. Sometimes she did, sometimes she did not.

At other points, probably after she had been contacting me for a number of days, I would open up a little more to her. I remember back in September of last year, towards the end one of our periods of 'blackout', she had been texting me for a few days with stuff like my example above. Then she called me while she was driving home from a singing gig. She just kept talking about her gig, what was going on with her job, with my SS, and I allowed myself to engage. I was nice, cheerful, and happy. At the end of that conversation, she told me that she had not given up on us and that she was 'thinking' about things. I told her that I understood and that knew that this was hard for her, and we said goodnight.

It is tough to explain, because I just felt it out and used my instincts based on what I know about my W and about our R.

As I've said a few times though, I may have made a mistake a few times by letting her back into my life too easily. On the other hand, had I taken a tougher approach too early, I may be in a much different place than I am today. I will never know.

Personally, from what you write about what you are doing now, and your definition of being dark with your W, I think that you are doing it perfectly for where your sitch is. It doesn't come across as being rude. It comes across as you giving her some space. You are not pursuing or pressuring. You are giving her the opportunity to see if she misses you.

Hope that helps.

Denver