She left - 3

[gogofo]

Here is yesterday in a nutshell, a big one.

W called at 4:45 and asked if and wanted to accompany family to grocery store, I accepted and she stopped in and picked me up. We romped around grocery store for an hour and headed out to her house.

An the way there out of the blue our oldest says "Daddy you can stay at our house in mommy's bed, she has two pillows!" We both paused for a second, looked forward, and then chuckled. I thought he had a good idea though.

W feeds kids, cooks our dinner, and then we proceed to the egg dying. This whole time I do not have a vehicle or a ride home without her taking me. I romp on the floor and wrestle with the kids for a while and sit wondering if my oldest was psychic. Finally around 8:45 we all load up and go to my house. Put the kids down and then I wait to see if she will start the conversation.

We small talk a little and then I just stop and look at her. I can see her wrestling with thoughts in her head and she keeps asking "what"? I finally ask, to give her some encouragement, what she wanted to chit chat about.

She started off with how she felt when she left. She said she felt like she was going to die if she didn't leave. I asked how long she felt these things and she said in September for sure and them brought up three other instances from the past.

Two of the arguments we got into were about rocking chairs for the babies rooms. I was opinionated and dumb about the whole process. The chairs were for her and her comfort, but I was an idiot about it and made her feel disrespected and unimportant. I should have let her have any chair she wanted, in retrospect I was such an idiot about it and unable to look at how she felt about the situation.

The other feelings she has of mistrust or feeling unimportant were about my decision to get a vasectomy. Before we even married we were pretty much in agreement about having two children. The first child was spearheaded by her. She brought up the idea and I agreed to go with it. After the first, the roles reversed and I spearheaded the decision about the second child. The second had a more difficult attitude than the first and in the first couple of months after his birth she said I should go get a vasectomy. I did not take this as venting and waited and scheduled the procedure to happen around Thanksgiving. I mentioned this to her and she was upset and said she was not ready and wanted to wait a year. I cancelled the appointment. During the next year we never really had much of a discussion about having more kids. She later told me that she talked to the councilor at her school about the issue. We both were at fault about not bringing up a serious heart to heart discussion about children. I later had the procedure, which I thought (assumed) I had her blessing on. She did get some pleasure out of this though because I had to have the procedure TWICE. I was the 4th person in 30 years that had to be redone by this Dr. On top of that, each time I was unable to be properly numbed in certain areas and I felt more than I should have, like cutting and snipping.

The vasectomy issue will be big and will never be forgotten by her. She said she was not even sure that she wanted another child, but the fact that I got the procedure made her feel unvalued and like she had no say in what happens with us.

The talks went into whether I thought we were fixable. I told her yes and she said she does not know. I wrote about this above.

What she has expressed is that she is stuck basically in the middle; nothing pulling her towards D and nothing pulling her towards reconciliation.

We talked about the kids being the most important part of this. She said she did her research and everything shows that staying together is the best for the kids. Then soon after that she looked at me and said "but I will not be in this marriage just for the kids." My interpretation of this is that I cannot just let the kids bring us back, I need to do my work.

My feeling is that she is leaning more towards us, but not much, for the simple fact that she says she likes me. I think she is scared to start reconciliation because she is scared of getting hurt again. I am scared to get hurt too, but I use this fear as motivation towards making personal growth advances and never to be back to where we were.

She talked about asking friends and family if she overreacted. They, or most of them, said that she did overreact. I said that I did not think so, those feelings she had were real and those people were not in her position nor did they have her feelings. I know she didn't come to her decision quickly, even if it was made in a highly emotional state.

During the talk we went back an forth between R talks and jokes and talking about what we have been doing at work, etc.

She also asked me what would be different in our relationship. I started talking about how I felt different and she stopped me and wanted specifics. Oh Boy! Pop quiz hot shot. So I talked about how things that mattered to me don't as much. I talked about wanting date nights, and alone time for us. I talked about being empathetic to her and respecting her opinion and wanting to listen to her and how she felt. She said she really feels that I don't know or like her, this being a result of my actions making her feel not respected. I was weird being put on the spot with her wanting examples about how things will be different. There were more things I would have wanted to say that I remembered later, but that is okay it is not life or death.

During the time together I was acting "as if" we were a happy couple again, except for physical touch. When we were talking she was a little cold so I turned up the heat and wrapped her in a quilt. Got her a glass of water when I got one. Gave her the tissue box when she got weepy. It is still a little weird being what I call an 80% spouse.

She grabbed a jacket out of the closet and got in her car and then turned back around. I jokingly thought to myself "here she comes for her hug, HA!" I knew she wasn't, but I laughed. She was cold and wanted a heavier jacket so I told her to sit down and let the car warm up and covered her back up with the quilt. We talked a little more about being cold because we both have lost a good amount of weight. I talked about being thinner and in better shape than ever and when she looked at me I gave her the ol' eyebrow lift (to be silly). She said I was a dork and I said "I was a dork when you fell in love with me and I figured it might heat her up a little bit." She chuckled and left.

No hugs or physical touch except me helping her up by the hand off the couch. But we did sit next to each other on the couch and it was the closest we have sat when being casual.

All in all another small step forward for us.