Digging in

[AnotherStander]

Jon, I always come here hoping to see new growth from you, but then I start reading and can't help but reach for a 2x4, LOL! I sense that you're trying to convince yourself you don't care what happens to the M, but I really don't think you're there. Your emotions are still all over the place. When you get to the point that you can go MONTHS without cycling through emotions over your sitch, but can instead meet it head-on with calm, poise and zero anger, and have gotten to the point where you aren't trying to "go dark" or "go dim" or other "tricks" but instead are just living your life and leaving your W to live hers, THEN you have gotten to the place you need to be. THEN you can decide if you're done and ready to move on. You are NOWHERE CLOSE to that place right now. I think you're in the throes of a false sense of being there, that happened to me too, and it happened right around the same timeframe after S that you're in right now. Take it from me, you need to step back, take a deep breath and gather yourself. Stop the pressure, stop the R talks, stop trying to convince yourself you're done. Find yourself.

W: "I love you, but I don't have warm feelings."
Me: "Well that stands to reason since we've barely seen each other or spoken for 2 months, and the times we have spoken typically haven't been very nice at all."

Anytime your W shares her feelings (good, bad or otherwise) you need to validate. A validating response might have been: I hear you saying you don't have warm feelings towards me and I understand why that might be, can you expand on how that makes you feel?

W: "Well, I love my dad, but I would never be around him, or let him hurt me again."
Me: "I'm not your dad, and you've never been able to stand your dad for more than a few hours at a time, but you and I have a good time almost every time we're together."

You basically told her "what you feel doesn't matter because I'm not your dad". You negated her feelings. Instead you should validate- "It must have been very difficult on you being around someone you loved, but that hurt you that way. How did that feel, were you angry, or sad, or frustrated? Do you see parallels between that and our relationship?"

W: "Well, there still aren't much emotions."
Me: "Don't b jealous." I have no idea why I did this!

Again, she's talking about feelings and you should be validating. Sending a pic of a margarita doesn't quality as validation, LOL!

I probably then broke every DB rule in the book, but it felt exactly right, I dunno why

"Why" is because DB'ing is counterintuitive. It "feels" wrong. That's why you have to set your feelings aside, they betray you.

Me "I understand that you don't feel much emotions right now, but emotions are fleeting, and can change based on whether someone get a good night's sleep.

You went into fix it mode. Don't try to fix her, you can't. Validate her feelings.

If you are 'done', we'll take the kids out for a nice breakfast, and we can tell them that you've decided to finalize the divorce, and it'll be done in a few months. If so, I will not be contacting you again, and I will wish you the very best in life. If you decide that's not what you want, you know where I stand and how I feel. Have a great night."

To me that sounds controlling and manipulative, like you're trying to force her to do things on your terms. And certainly it's applying a lot of pressure on her. Again, I think you need to step back and just let things be for a while. A LONG while.