During the first week of January, I suggested that she go out and have some fun. In fact, I strongly encouraged her to schedule a ‘girls night’ so she could get out of the house, which she did. During her night out, I didn’t call or text her. The next morning I made it a point to NOT ask her anything about her night other than if she had a good time. After about 20 minutes of watching me go about my business, she started talking about the night out and pretty much told me everything that happened. In fact, that’s become a habit now, even with text message conversations she’s having with friends. If I don’t show an interest, she tells me everything that’s going on.
Also during the first week of January, she mentioned a couple times that we needed to look at her resume. Over the next few days, I mentioned it a few times, but, she never really seemed to want to break away from the TV or whatever she was doing, to do this. Try as I might, I couldn’t figure out how to meet her request without it seeming like I was pressuring her to do something. So, I decided I’d work on it myself – always remembering that SHE was the one who said she needed to find a job so she could get out on her own. Even though I do NOT want a S or a D, I’m helping her to potentially achieve that goal. Is doing this considered a 180? But the fact is, right now we could use the extra income.
On January 8th, I sat down and created a resume and cover letter for her. Also, I printed out some jobs for her to look into. W walked into the room and asked what I was doing, and I simply said ‘research.’ She said she needed to go to the store, and would be back in about 20 minutes. I asked her to pick up a Gainesville newspaper for me while she was out. When she got back, she asked me what I was doing and I told her that I had a rough draft of her resume and asked her to look it over. After a few corrections, she was happy with it.
Next, I pulled out the help wanted section and gave it to her, along with the print outs I made and suggested that she look at the jobs and see if any were of interest to her. She found a few and we submitted her resume and cover letter.
On January 13th, she committed us to a $5,000 event for our youngest daughter, based on a job she didn’t even have yet. I was dumbfounded once more, though I didn’t yell, scream, or throw a fit. This has had a MASSIVE impact on my income for the next few months as we were barely surviving. In fact, she hadn’t brought home ANY money since February 2012 (again, she never drew a single penny of income from her last restaurant).
During the rest of January, nothing much happened, except us being friendly toward each other. Occasionally while watching TV, she’ll look over at me to see my reaction to something before she reacts, which I do find puzzling.
Basically, though, I spent the month acting ‘As-If’ about the relationship and the house. Any improvement I’m considering, I get her opinion on; any issues with the cars, I discuss with her. Any issues with the kids still living at home, she’s included in it. She has moved into the spare bedroom, but, isn’t always there. There’s been no further discussion about ‘us’ and it’s been mostly happy and upbeat.
Many times during this month, I have elected to give her space in the evenings by leaving the living room and going back to my room to work on hobbies or watch something different on TV. Every time, within 15 minutes, she has come back to my room to see what I’m doing. When she does, I’ll usually go back out to the living room for a bit, but, not always.
There have been several issues come up about the former restaurant partnership, which she usually discusses with a friend or two (whom I know quite well). I did ask her why she doesn’t feel like she can discuss them with me. She told me that there are things that I do not know about, and that if I did know I’d probably end up in jail. I just responded with ‘fair enough’ and didn’t discuss it further. This really caught her off guard, since before my 180’s I would have pursued this MUCH harder.
Oh, and before closing this month out, she DID get a few interviews out of the resume and cover letter!!!
