I'm glad you're still here, just noticed that you were in this forum -- I saw that you were looking for an update. Here you go, whether you want it or not:
It's now been 15 months since W said she wanted to reconcile. We had a little "honeymoon" period initially where we were working together to make things better. Over time, W slowly distanced little by little until things got really bad for me. I was looking for places to live so I could move out, MC was advising me to leave, even my DB coach advised moving out. I decided that instead of being a WAS myself and waiting to drop a bomb until I had everything arranged, I was going to let W know where I was, and we had a bit of a blow up at the end of June this year. That resulted in W distancing even more and giving me another ILYBINILWY speech, but at that point I was pretty well detached and it just didn't have the impact it did the first time around.
The kids still didn't know anything, so I decided to give it one more shot for their benefit. I read "His Needs, Her Needs". One important bit of info I got from that book was that The Five Love Languages is too generic, and you have to dig deeper into exactly what your spouse needs and how they need it. More importantly, however, it talked about "love busters", which are things about you that bother your spouse and effectively block your efforts at filling their love tank. I pursued that and figured out I had a couple "love busters" and 180'd them.
At the same time, I got some excellent advice that just my efforts at "working on the marriage" were making things worse by communicating that I wasn't satisfied with things as they were, so I was advised to entirely back off, or "give space".
For the last three months, things have been improving appreciably. I have stopped pursuing and have learned how to give just enough to keep things from getting awkward, while not overstepping. This has allowed W to step up a bit and things have been slowly moving in the right direction.
My MC advised me to keep a tally each day -- if you felt like you did today for every day for the rest of your life, would that be okay with you? Mark a + for yes, or a - for no. After some period of time, look back and count up your tallies, this will inform you if your current situation is one you can live with or not and you won't kid yourself. Fortunately, I've had many more plusses than minuses for the last few months, so we're moving in the right direction.
It's been a hell of a journey, and I wouldn't wish it on anybody, but I'm not getting divorced, my kids are happy, I'm able to sleep at night, and my W is moving back towards me.
Not bad right?
Accuray
Married 18, Together 20, Now Divorced M: 48, W: 50, D: 18, S: 16, D: 12 Bomb Dropped (EA, D): 7/13/11 Start Reconcile: 8/15/11 Bomb Dropped (EA, D): 5/1/2014 (Divorced) In a New Relationship: 3/2015
