Less than an hour after I posted my W randomly asked me how long it takes to get a passport so I told her. Both kids came running in right then and dragged me away to wrestle so we never continued talking. My guess is it was for kids because cruise goes to Mexico. After kids went to bed and we got house picked up she asked me if I thought our D7 would like the Barbie cruise ship and said she could buy it for her tomorrow. This is my W's passive way of initiating a conversation. She will never bring up topic that could be hard and expects me to instigate talks. Communication is still an issue (more on that later). In my head I yelled "OF COURSE SHE DOES, she has it on her list and has been saying she wants it to practice for the cruise for last couple weeks, just ask me what you really want". Since cruise has been on my mind and under deadline I said heck with it and said yes she would want it and speaking of cruise... We talked about it and decided to go ahead and go. I made sure to let her be the one to make the final decision and let her know about vacation protection. She did say that 'worst case it will show kids mom and dad can still get along'. I didn't comment to that at all and later tried to take it as a positive. 3 weeks ago we weren't going and would likely have pushed each other off the ship, my guess is 1.5 weeks ago there wouldn't have been a 'worst case' at the beginning but I'm likely reading too much into that.
After that we had small talk and some how got on topic of how my IC was going. Caught me off guard because expected 'real' conversation to be over. I told her I liked new guy and his style (solution based). She asked a few details because I never enjoyed IC before because it was always about past and never got results I was looking for. I didn't want to talk directly about any of my 180s or DBing so broadly told her SB style was and that we were working on my not relying on others to make me happy and my trust issues. She said she noticed I've been happier last couple weeks, especially with kids. She then talked about her IC a little and them working to bring her child out and not be led by her protector (she used other names but that's terms I knew). I was familiar with this from reading 'Courage to Trust' book so I commented a little on it and she seemed surprised I understood. I then told her how my protector always jumps in quickly which hurts my trust. Looking back I wish I would have let her talk more rather then tell her how it worked on me (one of Sandi's 180's on list that I still need help with).
I'm blanking on how we got to this in middle of conversation but somehow D came up and I clarified my comments from 3 weeks ago that I considered our old M dead and gone but that didn't mean I wanted to D her or not eventually work on us. She said "I know that" and the subject quickly changed. If I can remember how we got there I'll post it later but that's the last time I'll mention it. It's been bothering me so now I know she knows where I really stand, 3 weeks ago I was very clear to her the other way in my moments of anger.
A bunch of you guys on here and my IC have mentioned Retrouvaille and I noticed there is one within 20 minutes of our house starting in mid-January. Near end of conversation I brought it up from point of view that it might help our communication and it sounded interesting to me. She said she thought we communicated good about kids. I left that one alone because I know we talk good about kids. I know her head is still not in M or R so no point in telling her reason I want to go is to help us. We talked a little more about the concept and I said I'd e-mail her link, which I did this AM. She said she would take a look at it. Will be interesting to see if she says anything about it but I was surprised she even said she'd look at it. Baby steps...
Last thing of night was I helped her order flowers for funeral and I was a little surprised that she added my name to card. I even told her she didn't have to and she said it was fine, said she knew that her grandpa and I got along good all these years. She said thanks again for offering to go and helping with flowers. I still wish I could go and pay respects but I completely understand why so I won't bring it up again.
All in all it was nice to talk about something other than kids or small talk. I kept reminding myself to have no expectations and thought about you guys, even while we were talking. I'm trying to remember she's still not close to thinking about R, no matter how rose colored the glasses are I sometimes wear.
Personality is who the world sees, character is who you are
