She left - 2

[gogofo]

I think that the NC had pumped up my progress a little. With the ups ands down of contact I find myself thinking and assuming about her thoughts today.

AHH!

Now the W was texting to ask about swapping kids. I ask if she is going to eat dinner with me and the kids, because last week she asked me over fro dinner and for a talk (the talk never happened). Is this putting pressure on her?

She now is changing her tone about the talk. She texted that "she didn't know if I still wanted to" and it was "up to me." She told me to decide and that she "did not want to mess with my time."

I know I do not want to pressure her into a talk until she is ready. So I responded "Makes no difference to me, it won't change my plans one way or another."

Again I am more confused about what she is doing. My assumption (hope) is that she is seeing the changes in me and did not want to bring up the talk last week because we had a good night of sharing conversation and laughs. I doubt she cared too much if I was sick or not.

She seems to be projecting her indecision onto me, not owning the feelings herself.

Here I go assuming again, but maybe she is reconsidering me as a suitable husband again and it is making it hard for her to stick to her guns of wanting to leave me.

Anyone else see this kind of interaction from their WAS?

Man my emotions are rolling up and down this afternoon, but I have a meeting to go to so I will be taken away from thinking about this for a while.

[gogofo]

Thinking out loud (with the keyboard):

Being basically NC with W allows me to kind of live in this fantasy in my head where my M has all the new tools I have learned and the new me in it. It feels good.

I have been "covertly" using and practicing some of my communication tools at work and have noticed changes in my employees and the overall attitude of others in the office. It really is true that one person can make changes in others.

This success in my personal growth has me excited about what could be possible in my M. I just need to settle down and move forward with me and try not to fantasize about what could be.

It is hard though because I have been full of positive thoughts so much lately that I think positively about the future of my M. When these negative feelings hit me they really shock me as I have not been this happy/positive in a long time.

[Barrybran]

Just watch that indecision. She might be indecisive but she won't like it if you are (yay for women :p). Make sure you are decisive in what you are doing for yourself. ie. "this is what I'm doing for dinner, you're more than welcome to join me" rather than "what do you want to do". Put the ball back in her court and wait for her to do something with it. In the meantime, you're living your life and she'll bring the talk up when she wants to. Stay on course

[gogofo]

Thanks Barry. I did not think about needing to be decisive. I was worried that welcoming her to join me for dinner would be pursuing, but if we had soft plans to meet up I guess it would not be pursuing.

I know we aren't at a stage right now to invite her to dinner out of the blue. I would like us to work into having dinner a night or two each week, but I will have to wait for her to make that decision.

[Barrybran]

I feel the opposite. You are in a position to have dinner out of the blue while you're not in a position to have organised dinners. If you're going somewhere for dinner then why not invite your wife out as long as you go whether she does or not. I feel that trying to organise 1-2 dinners per week at this stage would be pursuing.

[gogofo]

Barry, I usually cook dinner at home most of the time. Are you saying that you don't think it would be pursuing to invite her over to the house to have dinner?

FYI- She is going to come over at 6 tonight, so we will see how it goes.

[Barrybran]

Inviting her to your house would be pursuing. I thought you meant if you were going out.

[gogofo]

We had a talk, about one and a half hours of relationship talk. The W came over at around 6:00 and we ate and played with the kids. Put them down at around 8:30 and continued small talk for a little bit.

W them gives a look and says "well, did you want to talk about us or were you never going to bring it up?" My response was "no I wasn't going to bring it up because last time it created issues."

So I asked what she thought and what happened to us and she talked about slowly feeling trapped and that her opinion did not matter. She said she tried to do things to fix us and when she stopped I did not notice.

She said things about not coming back and then sometimes she would say "not coming back to that" meaning the way it was before. She basically reiterated the point that she did not feel wanted or appreciated.

She asked me what I wanted to say and I told her to ask, but she didn't, she just wanted me to talk. I then told her how I didn't love myself and based my self worth and happiness on achieving and that is what was causing issues for me. I said I felt better about myself than I had in a long time. Explained how I felt the last 6 months and that is where she started to interject her feelings.

As much as she downplayed it in the beginning of our separation, the last six months were a big deal.

She said the only reason she has not filed for D was she did not want to cause me undo stress, etc.

The biggest thing she said was that she thought about just filing and getting it over with. Then she would wait to see if I would like her again, but she did not know how long that would take.

I asked her to clarify if she felt that I did not like her and she said yes. I started to clarify that I never did not stop loving her but before I got to the "stop loving" part she told me to stop. That was probably good because I was getting emotional. One of the boys woke up just then and when I came back we really didn't get back into the talk.

There are so many things I wanted to say to her and things I wanted to bring up, like reconnecting or MC etc, but I just held tight.

I will expand on it more tomorrow, but I need to sleep.

[Positivespin]

90 minutes is a loooooooooong talk. Please remember there is nothing you can say right now that will bring her back. If she wants to talk again about the R - do so......but dont you initiate.

Its going to be a real wild ride. Focus your time and energies over things in your circle of control- your W is not one of them at this time.

[gogofo]

The best part of the talk was that it was not hostile.

Other things she said were that she was mad when I would show up to get the kids the first couple of weeks cleanly shaven and dressed nice. She felt it was an insult to her that I could not look nice when we were together, but when she leaves I all of the sudden decide to look good. She feels that the way I look is a reflection on her and the way she looks is a reflection on me, and when I was doing bad the last 6 months and looked like crap it was because I didn't care enough to look good for her.

The statement about divorcing and then waiting for me to come back still throws me through a loop. I wanted to just yell, "I still Fxxking love you!" I don't see how she does not know that I love her still.

She was weeping off and on during our talk and I know she still hurts and is angry at the situation. She is angry because as she said "If I had tried, just the tiniest bit, she would never have left." This angers me because I was trying my ass off, in the wrong love language, but I was trying. I was in a state of neurosis and was basically sick for those six months and she had to bear the brunt of my action/inaction during this time.

She does not know if she could ever feel for me again, but she has stated that she is done trying. Again I wanted to say that "I will do what ever is possible to build a better relationship. Let me lead and you can follow when you feel comfortable." but I didn't.

From my perspective the path from here forward is easy to figure out, we would work on our connection with each other. We do not have any hatred with each other, just pain from past memories. I would have us talking more and even going out together to reconnect.

All she has ever said about the future involves her continuing with the separation. She talks as if this is permanent, but her feelings that she displays kind of contradict her words. I know not to believe half of what she says and I take her words as trying to rationalize her decision.