Crimson, first let me say that you are doing great, you are feeling grief but you are processing it without anger and frustration towards your XW which is a great sign. And you've got a keen ability to read comments and figure out how to apply them to your sitch without taking them personally , so kudos to you
Originally Posted By: Crimson
I've reread some of the posts and I keep going back to the pursuer/distancer dynamic. Does anyone think that is what is/has been at work here? At least partly?
Hard to tell if it's pursuer/ distancer or hot/ cold, but they are similar and I do believe that's what you're seeing. Here's Accuray's hot/ cold dynamic posting that I try to keep in mind in my sitch:
Quote:
Another thing to expect is that your wife will run "hot and cold" -- she'll be nice to you one minute and the next will shut down hard. This is extremely confusing. Here's what's going on -- your wife will "try on" being nice to you to see how it feels, or if she gets comfortable may slide back into a familiar partner role. At some point she'll catch herself, will worry that you'll get the impression that everything is now "okay" when for her it is not, and will then make sure to demonstrate to you that everything is NOT okay by shutting you out and pushing you away. That's all an inner dialog so to you it just looks completely confusing. If you expect it, you'll enjoy when she warms up and won't worry too much when she goes cold.
It's tempting to get into a mode of catastrophic thinking -- that each time your wife goes cold you worry it will stay like that forever, or "oh boy, this is it, she's gone!" That leads you to panic and overreact. This is a roller coaster, and there will be very dramatic highs and lows. The best thing you can do is try to stay near an emotional baseline. If the WAS bounces between 10 feet up and 10 feet down, the LBS tends to go 25 feet up and 25 feet down in response. Your goal is to go 5 feet up and 5 feet down instead. Take the long term view. Easy to say, hard to do, but if you know what to expect things get easier.
This is what I was trying to explain to you earlier, I think you're overreacting to her inner dialog. You should just shrug your shoulders and say "this will pass" and keep on keeping on I'm confident she'll be back. But you shouldn't wait anxiously by the phone or door. Go back to rock-solid, independent, PMA Crimson, and when she comes back be cool, calm and collected about it.
