I am struggling with this at the moment, too, but have gone the opposite direction of you. I speak with H only about the necessary things and see him only at the necessary times. I ignore his banter, his lashing out, and basically anything that would make him think we are friends.
I was in this position a few months ago. Right after I found out about the A and after my H moved out, we literally could not have a civil conversation about anything. At first, I tried to tell him how I changed. He flat out said that he did not believe me. So I kept walking my path. I stopped engaging when he tried to provoke me. It eventually worked.
I will say that it was much easier to enforce the boundary then because I could not stand him at the time.
Originally Posted By: melissag
Do you think you have expectations about him coming home eventually?
I mean, I was starting to feel somewhat detached from my H, but then, when he wanted to push forward with D, I realized that was because I was still holding out hope he would come back.
I guess I don't know how to separate hope and expectations.
I feel like I am able to keep my expectations pretty low. In the beginning, I would analyze every sentence and action to see if maybe H would change his mind. Now I know that even if we have an amazing day together, it is not going to change anything right now. By keeping my expectations low with respect to H's actions, I have actually found myself surprised when H rises above my low expectations instead of being upset when he does not meet them.
I do however still have hope that he will eventually want to R. I can see that my H and I are both making changes for the better. We have changed the way we communicate. When we are together for family day and even during the week, we operate as teammates. It has not been that way for years. We have both individually addressed the majority of the complains that we had about one another.
I have to remind myself that there is still something that my H does not like about our R or his life in general. It reminds me that this really was not all about me like my H has said for the past few months/years.
Right now, I am simply choosing to have faith...faith that God has a plan for me and my children that will be amazing in the end. I have faith that we may find our way back to each other and if not, faith that there is someone else out there that God intended for me to love and be a part of my family.
