Hello! 20 year marriage teetering on the brink...

[AnotherStander]

My greatest challenges are A) having patience and B) keeping hope alive.

Yup! Two tall orders, right? You seem to be handling yourself like a pro. I'm impressed with your apparent calm and detachment. Keep it up mate!

Thank you, I probably come off sounding more calm and detached here than I am in real life, LOL! It's a struggle. I'm thankful I'm able to function normally day-to-day, but I have to admit my thoughts are constantly on my W.

I would take that as a great positive. She is obviously including you in family life. Presumably she could be seeing your D18 on her own. Also, I think it's a great positive that your W wanted to visit your sister. I remember that one of the first positives in my sitch 8 years ago was when H came with us to visit my sister and her new baby in hospital. Before that, he'd distanced himself from all things relating to my family.

Thanks for your words of encouragement My W never did distance herself completely from my family, but she did cut back on talking to them. But I was surprised she wanted to go see my sister's baby since we're separated now. She also went to my niece's softball game while we were there to take pictures of her (she's a pretty good photographer). And she took a lot of pictures of the baby. It was nice to see her do that, photography is a hobby that she said she wanted to get more involved in as part of her "finding herself". My whole family knows the sitch, but they are very kind people and know not to pressure W about it so they did an awesome job of acting "as if". There was nothing awkward about the visit at all, it went great.

I know you mention that your questions about these two people would have seemed innocuous given that you know them but I wouldn't underestimate how finely tuned her senses would be to your motives in asking.

My W has a circle of friends that she's had for quite some time and whenever we make small talk I ask about them (usually when we're driving somewhere and bored), this has been going on for years so predates BD by quite a while. My questions are VERY generic, basically "what has X been up to lately?" Usually she'll fill me in on what's been going on with them. This is the first time I can remember that I've asked and she's responded with "I don't know, haven't talked to X in a while." I do believe she was being honest and it struck me odd that now that she's on her own she's not talking to what were her closest friends. But point taken, I'll be careful about that

Maybe you're too close to the sitch to be objective about improvements but it sounds to me as if there are tons of positives. Even the 'babe' and nearly grabbing your shoulder. It's as if you're not wanting to see the positives for fear of getting your hopes up or being disappointed further down the line.
Again, in my sitch 8 years ago, H lapsing into old endearments was a good sign. I can assure you that that doesn't happen with the WAS is still moving away.

You're absolutely right, I'm very concerned about getting excited about baby steps for fear that it's really not the progress I want it to be. Thank you so much for your reflection on your own experience with this, that gives me a lot of hope!! And you're right, there's no signs W is moving further away so that at least is a good sign. There have been other signs that I may not have mentioned such as W making much more eye contact recently. I've also caught her looking at me at times when I'm not looking at her. And sometimes when she does something like the almost-shoulder-grab it really looks like she wants to but is fighting the urge. Hopefully with more time she'll quit fighting the urge

Thanks again, I appreciate the support!