Tempering Expectations and Frustration

[Hurt84]

Hello all,

It's been a few weeks since my last post but the long and short of it is that after about 5-6 months of reconciling, I discovered that my W began talking to OM again. I confronted her with it and it led to further advances by me about trust and commitment where, ultimately, I pushed it to the point where W had enough of me saying the same thing over and over and brought up divorce again. After a week of staying at her moms, she came home but gave no promises to working things out. She's been staying in a guest room and pretty much keeps to herself. My motivation at the point when she came home was to let things calm down between us and show her that I can be someone that she'd want to be with, rather then someone that is suffocating her.

To date, not much has changed. The thing that is ironic (if you want to call it that) is that after about 2-3 weeks, she stopped talking to OM. Knowing that, I kind of kick myself that I let that few weeks of contact throw me back into all the feelings I went through last year with her A. That's not to say I am beating myself up over it, it just makes me wonder if I didn't pursue it would we be here right now?

So it seems about every 2 weeks or so, she likes to remind me that even though we are talking more or we spend time together it doesn't mean anything has changed for her. I don't know if she's really letting me know or if she's trying to convince herself of that. So far I've bit each time and go into a whole litany of begging and pleading and convincing about how things can be different - the exact things I try to avoid doing.

The only positive thing that I think I said the last time was the following as I tried to keep myself under control: "I understand that we feel differently right now about our relationship and you believe you want to end it. I'm not at that place so if that is seriously something you want to pursue then I can't stop you." I said that because if she's waiting around for me to draw up the divorce papers for her, she's got another thing coming. That conversation actually ended with us talking about our expectations of one another so A) I don't go expecting the world only to get disappointed and B) she is a little more aware of my needs while she's sorting out whatever she needs to. The week or so after that has actually been going pretty well. She actually has been spending some more time with me, even if it's only to eat meals together or hang out before going to bed.

At the same time, the pace at which things are moving is frustrating. I've found myself over the last week getting spitting mad at a couple instances:
- Last Monday it was over repairs that are needed to our roof after the hurricane in the fall. We've held off on the repairs for months because her cousin owns his own roofing business and the damage was minor. Well, he actually got around to looking at it last Monday during the day but didn't tell anyone. So when I got home I find the tarp hanging off with it about to rain. When I tried to find out from her (she wasn't home at the time) if she knew anything she kind of blew it off. That annoyed me to no end and made me realize that part of our problems have to do with her wanting no responsibility for anything that requires work or energy whether it be chores around the house, the dog, whatever. I was literally stewing about it for a good hour or so. I was about to confront her about my feelings when she called and talked to me about what she found out and then preceded to talk about her day and actually start a conversation. Just like that I calmed down and we had a good rest of the night.
- Last night I got just as mad when she went to bed. Typically she goes to bed way earlier then me because of the hours she works and last night was no different. What was different was as she was going to bed as I was coming in from taking the dog out. At that point I went to just go say goodnight and before I could even take a step, she just blurts out, "Don't!" like I was going to come onto her or something. I tried asking her what that was about and she didn't even respond. What was weird was that this weekend was actually pretty good with us. I've kept myself busy by going out with friends when we don't have things planned or taking up sports. We went to dinner Saturday night for her sister's birthday and yesterday I helped her with something she needed for work before making dinner together. It really just seemed out of left field and I'm still frustrated about it. I'm concerned that I'm going to say or do something that won't help things.

Anyway, I'm doing as good as I can with keeping my expectations to a minimum while still looking for any signs of a thawing between us. It's very frustrating and I'm trying to think of ways to cope with that.