Not a very happy story, I'm afraid..

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So then yesterday, I called her while I was at work. We are traveling to my brother's wedding this coming up weekend and I had gotten confirmation of the plane tickets and had some info on how we would be getting around once we got there.

I really did mean to keep the conversation short and sweet, but she got to chatting a bit. She mentioned how she was going to be doing a fantasy football league online this year (something she's never done before - she's definitely doing her own GALing!). And how she'd spent 2 hours the other night researching players.

Well, that definitely triggered me. I basically asked her if she had 2 hours to spend doing that, why couldn't she take a few minutes and work on her schedule? Why couldn't we talk about some of this stuff from counseling? Were we going to go back? Were we going to try and date, as we'd agreed? If we're not going to live up to that separation agreement, why bother with it?

I'm not sure how it came up, but I told her how upset I'd been that she'd come home super late the other night, but how I was trying to keep my cool about these things regardless. She retaliated with an incident from over a year ago when I'd gotten home at 2 with some friends and we woke her up. I said look I apologized for that when it happened, a year ago, and nothing like that has ever happened since, what does that have to do with anything? And besides, I'm not that inconsiderate person anymore. Haven't been for a long time. Eventually I was able to say that I had really been worried that the cops were going to knock on my door at 6:30 and tell me that she'd wrapped herself around a tree, hadn't I expected her home? She seemed to soften at that.

I stayed fairly cool. I didn't raise my voice. She admitted (not these exact words) that she had a lot of resentment built up and she was doing this stuff to "get back" at me. I just said look, I know you want your space, but we are still living under the same roof, the security system is going to beep when you open the door and wake the other person up. I don't need to know where you are or what you're doing, but if you could give me a heads up if you're going to be out late, that would really help me deal with this better. And really all the other stuff I'd been asking about was just because things seemed so up in the air. We found that we'd taken some of the terms of the separation differently, so we talked about what our interpretations were and how we should behave going forward.

She was very upset and retaliatory at first. Over the course of the conversation though, she agreed to go out on a date tonight when she gets back from class. We are going to continue counseling in a few weeks on Saturday mornings (counselor is only there every other week and we'll be out of town this weekend, so we need to catch up with the cycle).

I honestly don't remember the details of what was said, I wish I'd recorded it so I could analyze it.. Really work on what I was saying in the moment and observing her reactions. It was a 45 minute conversation. At the end, she said, "thanks for ruining my afternoon and ruining my night at work." I just said that I hadn't meant for this to go on this long, and I didn't mean to "railroad" her with my feelings. She just said, "you always say that you don't mean for this stuff to happen, but you do it anyway." Which is a good point.

Yesterday after work, I went to a salon and got my hair cut. I haven't done that in years, since before we were dating. I always felt a bit funny about having some girl touch my head. But it was great fun, and I think I'm going to look darn good for this wedding. Last night, I went to a friend's house. When I got home, she was there and her door was open so I stopped in and said thanks for grabbing the mail and bringing my laundry upstairs. How was work? She chatted a few minutes about work. Looks like she might be getting that promotion after all. Great news. Well goodnight.

It's funny. After our phone call yesterday, I actually felt good about how things ended up. I know I lost control and that's what started things, and I need to get better at my poker face. I made some mistakes. But I don't think they were huge ones (like what happened on Thursday). Really, I was upset at her lack of accountability for what she'd said she was going to do. Nobody likes to be called out on that, so of course she got upset. But I wasn't in it to be "right" -- I wasn't grilling her on her whereabouts or anything. It was more like, this is what we agreed to right? This is my understanding of it, are we going to stick to this or do we need to renegotiate? And I actually did learn a bit more where we stand -- she's still angry, and for some reason that makes me think there's more hope.

Also, in our conversation, I got direct confirmation that she doesn't talk to me because she's afraid of how I'll react. That I'm "hot and cold" because I get triggered and then things explode into full fledged talks when she's not prepared for that. While this falls under the "duh" category, it helped me to hear that from her rather than just get the stonewall treatment.

I know I still need to work on my patience and letting go. I think I've made progress though -- a month ago, I would not have let things go a week before talking about it. I still reached a limit in my capacity for uncertainty, but it was better than I've been in a long time.

I came to another realization over the weekend. Again in the "duh" category. After Friday night, I became certain that she was cheating on me. Where could she be if not at someone's house til 3am? But the realization I had was this: whether it's physical or emotional or just losing interest, she cheated on me the moment she started closing herself down. When she gave up on the marriage, she gave up on her promise to me. THAT is the issue, not who she's with now or how she's coping. THAT is what needs to turn around if this is going to go anywhere.

Obviously I'm not saying, "so what if she is cheating?" Just that if she is, it's more an extension of the ball she already started rolling. In a way, the worst has ALREADY happened. She already hides her phone from me. She already keeps her life secret. And I'm not cool with that. I am keeping the door open for her, but I'm realizing more and more how much of a change she is going to have to make if she wants to keep me around. This is not a marriage I want to have. Even if I love her to bits.

I guess my self respect is coming back a little bit.