Thanks, Sandi. I look forward to your comments. Let me throw in this morning's episode. Fell way off the wagon again as far as the rules are concerned. Broke a goodly bunch.
Yesterday, W asked me for $180 to cover her T co-pays. We were outside, so I asked her to give me the details inside later, but I said I had just paid all the bills, and we had $500 to cover the next 2 weeks of whatever came up.
This morning, she said she thought about that, and that if she had visibility to bank acct, she would have known.
I told her that I had spent a lot of time figuring out how we got to where we were, and that I recognized my part in it, took responsibility for it, and was willing to change things, but that I would need some commitment from her that she really wanted to work on things. I said that now that she has job again (she quit hers when we got M / pregnant), that our whole dynamic was changing and we should re-evaluate a lot of things, including bank accounts / joint access.
I told her that I really admired her for starting her career again, that she was turning into "ambitious career woman" and that brought something out in her that I found very attractive. Told her that she was gaining back that ambitious career drive that she had when I met her and fell in L with her. Told her that although we had agreed to put her career on hold while we had kids, that I didn't think either of us fully realized what it cost us in terms of R.
At that point, she interjected that she didn't regret that decision, and that that wasn't our problem.
I said I understood that was how she felt, but that it may have affected how I treated her. She became a total dependent, and I became solely responsible for the whole family. We weren't equals any more, and that definitely affected the way I treated her. Maybe she heard me.
I told her that I had been giving her as much space as I could for her to think through things, and that I have been thinking through my part and working on that.
Told her I was committed to working through things when/if she was ready, but that she would have to be at the point where I wasn't being blamed for everything.
Told her that I loved her, and that she had tested that with A with OM and that I was still her H standing by her. She said she didn't know how she felt, but wasn't sure if I could give her what she needed, since I never had.
We agreed that I have been a good provider, and that ML was always good.
But then, I went further. Told her she was free to make her own choices. I don't control her, and don't want to control her; the only way anyone could stay interesting to me would be to be their own person. Told her that I was willing to work with my W, but that I couldn't work with her in the role of OM's mistress. [There's that judgmental alpha boundary.] She denied A angrily and walked away. Everything had been pretty calm up to that point.
I will not argue with her, but I will no longer stand and be lied to - there's a boundary there.
Left her with this: I can't work with you until you commit to honesty. If you cannot be honest, then you have made your choice.
So there it is. Broke a lot of rules (every rule), but at the same time, I have a real problem with cake eating, to the point where I apparently cannot just sit and ride out A quietly. Not while she sleeps beside me.
In that I can't see where what I've done here advances the cause, I have to assume this is a setback of unknown magnitude. I was doing well until she pulled me in today. And I know she has been noticing my 180's, and is at the stage where she just doesn't know whether to trust them yet.
She is going away Friday for 3 days to some session that is supposed to help her find herself. She has more fodder now.
