Hey Arsene, I'll comment back on your thread later today, but I think CB and BB are giving you some real good advice here.

This actually dovetails nicely into what MY IC and I talked about yesterday.

I don't want to go into too many of the specifics, but the overview goes like this: I spent time recaping last weekend as best as I could. First, I focued on what I saw were the "negative" interactions, then the "positive" interactions. I told IC about setting my boundaries, the expression of my thoughts and feelings, and my genuine hope for the future.

He reiterated a few times that W certainly seem extremely lost and confused right now, and may be looking to continue pointing a lion's share of the blame of the downfall of the marriage on me... Which I accepted she was doing a while ago... But, as we agreed, time is VERY much on my side if that is the case... Here's why:

As the "darkness" continues, so too does HER life... and when things start to go wrong in her "Newly perfect world" and her instinct is to try to think of someone to blame... she'll search for me... Not finding me, she'll have to either blame someone else (friend or OM or whatever) or she'll have to start looking inward.

But even if the above paragraph is not accurate at all, by setting these boundaries lovingly and letting her know my feelings of wanting to reconcile and work on our marriage as soon as she's willing to put a little "skin in the game", I've put the ball back in her court... Which I desperately needed to do, as I've been driving this for the entire time she's been gone.

Now, IF she ever decides to contact me again, I'll know that at the VERY least, she's heard what I said and is willing to take a super tiny baby-step toward reconciliation. And that is important to me, to know that it's HER decision, not some magic words I was able to say or some super-cool action I was able to take that made her want to come back.

My IC commended me for the progress I've been making, and I shared a lot of that credit with YOU, the DB community. He definitely reiterated time is on my side, and that he feels that my plans and goals are not only perfectly healthy, they're the types of things he strives for his clients to get to.

Wanting to reconcile with my W, even though there's an OM in the picture is perfectly fine... Obsessing over ways to win her back... well that's not quite as fine! Having a plan of self-discovery is great, following through on that plan is even better.

This doesn't make my desires to reach out to my W any less real, or even less frequent. I constantly want to hear from her, to have her call or text or email or send a damn smoke signal. And there are at least a few times a day that I think "Me sending ONE quick text or email won't hurt... I'll just say "Hi" or "I'm thinking of you" or "You left XYZ behind, do you want me to mail it to you?"... But that puts the ball squarely back in my court and sets back my personal progress.

I want a life with my W back in it, but I need to know that SHE chose it and is dedicated to making HER OWN personal progress in order to ensure that I'm not back here a few months or years after a reconciliation.

And there's nothing I can do to speed that process up, no matter how badly I wish I could.