Hello! 20 year marriage teetering... (part II)

[AnotherStander]

I sent the Thanksgiving/ Christmas email to W again yesterday afternoon because she never replied, I made an excuse for her ("I'm sending this again because it may not have gone through"). She did reply to it after a few hours. She mentioned that MIL had invited me to Thanksgiving and I was welcome to go along. Not sure if anyone remembers, but on our anniversary about a month ago I asked W what she wanted to do and she replied back "I don't know, it's all so weird right now." So I intentionally bounced that right back to her and told her I thought it would be too weird to go to MIL's for Thanksgiving as a family when we're not anymore, so I won't be going. She also said she'd like to have the kids on Christmas eve and then could bring them to my house after dinner which is fine with me, but then she said she wanted to come to my house with MIL on Christmas day to open presents and take pics. I replied back that I had assumed she would open presents with them at her house and I would do the same with them at my house. I also said "I don’t know about having it all at my house, I need to think about that." I'm really stumped on this one. On the one hand I'm not one bit interested in spending Christmas with W and MIL and I think W needs to understand that with S and D comes division, and that I won't put up with cake-eating (her version of cake-eating being that she wants to live separately but do everything as a family). I think that sitting in her house with her mom on Christmas day would be a real wake-up call that S and D are going to have a real impact on her life. But on the other hand it might be better for the kids to have W and MIL there for gift opening. Any thoughts?

While it could end in reconciliation, divorce, friendship, it could also end with the realization that with all the work you have done yourself, that there may be a day when you don't want them back.

My biggest concern all along has been that I would move along and THEN W would want to come back. It's a real conundrum because most of the old timers here will tell you that you really do have to drop the rope and move on before the WAS considers returning, so in essence what they're saying is "you have to quit loving the WAS before they'll start loving you again." But then what LBS wants to open themselves up to the possibility of going through all that misery again? Once I turn that love off, do I really want to turn it back on again? It's a tough question.

Again you have such a balanced and rational approach which is what is so needed in this emotionally fueled stage of our lives.

Thank you for continuously being s source of strength and rationale. Straight up, d@mn good advise for us all.

Thank you Busting, you are too kind And I want to clarify for those who are reading, I hope I don't make it sound like this comes easy to me because it doesn't. It's hard work, it's exhausting and it's stressful. It is on my mind constantly every single day. A lot of people around here say that DB'ing is the hardest work you will ever do and it is so true. Constant work- day after day, week after week, month after month. It would be easier if we knew we were doing it to save our marriages. But we're doing it simply for a chance at saving our M's! I think that's why I've largely shifted the focus to myself, it's easier to do this for me then it is for a slim chance of saving my M.