Last night I was thinking about how I had not seen any baby steps for a while, so I started going over things and realized that maybe I was looking for big ones and perhaps missing some small ones such as:
W paid me a few compliments on how great the house looked (I did some pretty major Halloween decorating at the request of S9) and even mentioned how nice my car looked, asked if I had detailed it. These may sound like nothing (and granted they're not much), but it is a change as she has not offered any such compliments since BD although she used to pre-BD.
Also this is hard to describe, but the way W has been looking at me lately is different. For quite a while after BD she wouldn't make much eye contact and when she did it was distant, but now it's more like that old "I enjoy being with you" look.
Another interesting thing- I ran across a few Halloween decorations when I was setting them up that were W's, so I gave them to her yesterday. Then I asked her about a small group of buildings I had set out, I thought maybe her mom had bought them but I couldn't remember for sure. I asked her and she said that yes, her mom had bought them for us. I asked her if she wanted me to box them back up so she could take them and she said something like "you've already got them out and S9 was looking at them, so just leave them and we'll figure it out next year." What's interesting about this is up to this point she's been trying to get all her stuff out of my house. She even went up into the attic and went through the Halloween stuff and took some of it when she moved, but missed these because they were buried under other stuff. So it seems she no longer feels an urgent need to make that clean break.
None of this is anything to get very excited about, but it seems to be part of a slow warming up that's been taking place. And THAT is something to be hopeful about
Regarding GAL, since BD I have not bought one single thing for myself. I was concerned about my finances, but now that W is out and I'm paying all the bills and for kid stuff I have a better handle on things and can see I'm doing OK financially. So I bought a video game for S9 and me (co-op play) and also went out and bought a new aerobatic R/C heli for myself (I've been flying R/C for around 25 years). I haven't flown anything since BD, I was saving it for when I really felt like my frame of mind was back where it needed to be. And this weekend I finally felt like it was The weather was beautiful and I flew the new heli and some of my older planes and a quad. I also went for some nice rides on one of my Harleys and everywhere I drove this weekend I put the top down on my car. Got my yard mowed and cleaned up and put the Halloween stuff out as mentioned above. Plus S9 and I put some time in on that new game. It was a great weekend, lots of happy times!
I mentioned before that going dim has just not worked, there are too many kid activities for it to be effective. W and I have some kind of interaction almost every day (text, phone, in person). But I don't initiate ANY contact. When she does I do respond, sometimes right away and sometimes an hour or two later. I don't always answer when she calls. When she wants to know if she can swing by sometimes I'm not there and tell her so, but am vague about where I am and what I'm doing. In DB'ing fashion I'm available, but a bit mysterious We're still getting along great, we've still had no M talks since she moved out. I really have no idea at all where her head is, I don't know if she thinks S is the greatest thing ever or if she's thinking about our M. So I'm just sticking to the DB'ing and monitoring the baby steps.
