Hoping for Reconciliation after being Separated...

[Ambivalent]

4. Let them speak without interruption.

5. Avoid jumping in to correct, defend and/or explain yourself. Just listen!

These are the toughest for me! When we went to lunch H shared and I had to reeeeeally concentrate...this is an area of which I have a major challenge.

Thanks for stopping by my thread. I'm keeping tabs on your situation. <3

[chasingpavements]

Arg! Still haven't had 'our talk' yet. I feel the longer we go without talking the more nervous I am getting. I think mainly I will let him take the lead of the conversation and do a lot of listening and validating. My DB coach has also given me some great suggestions on what to say or do if certain things happen in our talk. She has said that for the most part let him do the talking.

After he is done expressing his concerns I have a few points that I want to bring up as well. My coach suggested I could phrase it as that I have come up with some solutions to some of the problems we are having...and express my concern and the ideas I have come up with for solutions.

H sprained his ankle pretty bad last night as his volleyball.. it looked awful. I am hoping that won't push our talk back even more... I am getting so nervous!!! Feels like I am in limbo again.. waiting for this talk to happen!!!! ahhhhhhh

I feel like everything is riding on this talk and how it goes. The reason I am so worried is that communication is not one of our strong suits. We haven't done it so well in the past, hopefully we change that as that is one of the areas we need to work on! I am hoping this is a starting point for us to move forward.

peace
-cp

[chasingpavements]

4. Let them speak without interruption.

5. Avoid jumping in to correct, defend and/or explain yourself. Just listen!

These are the toughest for me! When we went to lunch H shared and I had to reeeeeally concentrate...this is an area of which I have a major challenge.

Thanks for stopping by my thread. I'm keeping tabs on your situation. <3

That is where I have a lot of learning to do as well! I am so used to defending my point, and I think that has really hurt my marriage. I think it is the reason for him closing himself off to me. Pretty hard to feel connected to someone when you can't even talk to them! Hopefully I can improve how I communicate with him and that he will eventually feel he can come to me to talk about things.

[Ambivalent]

Hey Chasing...your situation at times is similar to mine, what was the longest time that you two didn't have contact?

I'm going on eight days and it is KILLING me! He contacted me two Mondays ago and came out that Tuesday, but I had already left. Car washing and school.

Since those last friendly texts I have not heard a peep. He has started new job, has a new " more like him " ( says daughter )poker group. Prior to that he opened up a great deal , at a lunch he took me too, and an e-mail where he suggested "...we should work on that if we are going to put our marriage back together..."

I figured he'd withdraw after those, but he did come out last week. It is now, this week that I'm not hearing from him. UUUUUUgh, I'm going bat sh-t crazy! Okay now that that's out...<:}...

Any ideas? Sound familiar? Throw me a bone please?

[chasingpavements]

Hi Ambivalent,

It is a little bit different for me because we have 3 young children, and we are busy with all sorts of children's activities in the evenings. Right now we are separated and he usually comes over in the evenings every other night, to visit the kids and help with them. On the days that I do not see him, we usually don't talk. And if we do, it is usually to the point, and usually regarding kids and schedules.

We tend to keep in touch using text messages and they are right to the point, very formal. If it were up to me I would like to joke around a bit or talk about things other than the kids, but when I do he doesn't usually react to it. He has been loosening up a bit though, lol. It's as if we are business associates, it is driving me crazy

That is one of my DB goals, to get him to start talking to me about things other than the kids. I have noticed a little bit of improvement and he seems to linger a bit longer talking to me before he heads out after our visits. Baby steps!

I agree with what job wrote on your thread, that he just needs time and space right now to think about things. It seems like things are headed in a positive direction for you so I wouldn't worry about it too much. Hope that helps!

[jp787]

Arg! Still haven't had 'our talk' yet. I feel the longer we go without talking the more nervous I am getting. I think mainly I will let him take the lead of the conversation and do a lot of listening and validating. My DB coach has also given me some great suggestions on what to say or do if certain things happen in our talk. She has said that for the most part let him do the talking.

After he is done expressing his concerns I have a few points that I want to bring up as well. My coach suggested I could phrase it as that I have come up with some solutions to some of the problems we are having...and express my concern and the ideas I have come up with for solutions.

H sprained his ankle pretty bad last night as his volleyball.. it looked awful. I am hoping that won't push our talk back even more... I am getting so nervous!!! Feels like I am in limbo again.. waiting for this talk to happen!!!! ahhhhhhh

I feel like everything is riding on this talk and how it goes. The reason I am so worried is that communication is not one of our strong suits. We haven't done it so well in the past, hopefully we change that as that is one of the areas we need to work on! I am hoping this is a starting point for us to move forward.

peace
-cp

Hi Chasing.
I get the feeling of anxiety from this post, like your biting your nails.
I would suggest slowing down and not build up expectations. Don’t rush anything and expect more time.
IMO, your H needs to be a place that he knows he is full in and ready to work on the M, before he moves home. IMO, take more time while apart to allow communication to happen and work on making it healthy.
My W just turned the corner a few weeks ago. Prior to that she was saying things like “if I came home” she would throw things out, but I could tell she wasn’t sure, confident, ready. Once she turned the corner there was no guessing that she made a choice and was in 100%.
Let many conversations happen between you, let them happen without expectation.
My W and I decided that we wanted to start or have MC in place before she moved home. She wanted to work on some things with her IC before she came home. She asked me if I was ready. Don’t rush anything, allow time.

[jp787]

To add... We started out dating again. Then it turned into her coming over and spending some weekends, now it is every weekend.

[chasingpavements]

Thanks jp! You're right, I have been having anxiety over waiting to have this talk. It has been 10 days since he mentioned wanting to talk again soon. It is stressing me out a bit thinking about how it will play out. You're definitely right to not have any expectations right now and just slow down everything.

Right now I am in a place where I want to move forward, yet I am still kind of protecting myself because i don't want to get hurt again. For us to reconcile and him to move back in he would have to be committed to working on the marriage. And even then, we would likely do what you did. Start dating again and gradually add in him staying on some weekends. I will leave it up to him though and see what his ideas are and let him take the lead.

It's helpful to hear from you since you are slightly ahead of me with your timeline. I had been wondering about how to go about things now that reconciliation is a possibility. I guess the plan is to just gradually re-build the relationship with the help of the counselors.

thanks!
-cp

[chasingpavements]

Just a little update,

Spent a nice day today with H and the kids. It was H's b-day today. We all went out to dinner at a sushi restaurant, which was nice, had a lot of fun. Came back to the house afterwards for a nice pumpkin cheesecake and he helped put the kids to bed.

I must say it feels so strange with him out of the home, like we are so disconnected. Exciting in a way because we can share more details about what's going on in our lives and we have a lot of things to talk about. I don't know how to describe the feeling, almost like he is a stranger. Normally I would know every tiny little thing going on in his life, and now I only know bits and pieces.

Still, it was nice to spend some time with him and just relax and have fun. Our talk is set for tomorrow night. Hopefully nothing gets in the way this time! lol. I do feel a little bit more relaxed about everything. Me worrying about everything is not going to help the matter any so I just have to let go.

[chasingpavements]

Our talk is tonight and I am worried about the validating thing. I have been REALLY bad at this in the past. I pasted a quote about validating earlier on this thread so I will have to go back and read that again.

Where we get into trouble is that I feel the need to defend myself. I usually feel like he says things that I don't feel are true and I defend myself. What if he says something I don't agree with or don't think are true? Or he says I haven't been doing something but I actually have?? Do I defend myself then??

For example, if he says I have not been independant enough and I am always relying on him. I guess I would then say, yes I could see how you would think that but I have really been working on trying to be more independant. I have been getting groceries on the weekends and driving around town more. I have been trying to fix things around the house without asking you first.

Is that a good response?

Any advice or tips would be appreciated!

-cp