None of my messages on this thread have been approved in over a week, so there are a bunch sitting in the queue. Apologies if I'm repeating myself in my journaling, but I can't see the unapproved posts to make sure I'm not duplicating info.
I've now gone somewhere between "detaching" and "going dim". I finally got tired of my wife's cake-eating in which she's been coming to my house every evening after work and hanging out like everything is fine, then going to her house to sleep. She's also been coming to my house every weekend and expecting to do things as a "family" (going out to eat ,etc.) with me paying of course. I know DR recommends becoming your wife's best friend, but I've done that for 3 months now and it's not working. Not a single one of my baby step goals has been met (wife initiates hug, wife initiates convo about something other than the kids or logistics, etc.) Time to shake things up and try something different and quit going down cheeseless tunnels. W texted me yesterday telling me she was picking up D15 for photos and then bringing her home, so I used the opportunity to suggest she should start going to her house every evening from now on and quit coming to mine, that it would be best for both of us. I also asked her to quit letting herself in my house and either knock on the door or text from the drive if she's getting the kids. I told her that if she wants to take the kids to give me a day's notice beforehand (eventually we're going to do 50-50 visitation, but we haven't started that yet because she's still setting up her house). And I told her I would no longer volunteer my services to help her do stuff at her house because it’s an intrusion on her privacy, but if she needs my help then ask for it and I will be happy to oblige. She said she was fine with all of that.
I have two reasons for this new approach, the main one being I really need the distance for me. Every time I see her it’s just a reminder of the hell I’m living through because she acts like my wife in everything except intimacy. The other is I don’t think she’ll ever take the time to really think about this and come to grips with her feelings/ emotions as long as she thinks she can keep coming back for the companionship. If she has to sit in her house alone evening after evening then maybe she’ll be able to do the soul-searching she needs and take stock of what she wants.
W also made plans for us to go visit D18 at college this weekend for “parents weekend”, but I canceled on that too and told her to go alone because I needed to stay for D15 and S9 (D15 and S9 both have plans for the weekend and didn’t want to go). I just spent time with D18 last weekend and plan on going to visit her by myself in a couple of weeks, so I’m not hurting D18 in this. W seemed miffed about it, she doesn’t like driving alone. Ironically when we moved D18 to college and were driving back she commented on how she used to hate driving alone at dusk because she felt so lonely, and now she’s going to have to do exactly that.
It’s been about 3 months since I started my 180’s and they’re becoming routine now. I’ll do a separate posts on what my 180’s are and how they’ve progressed.
