Thanks SF and Tarheel, Of course you are correct. I know it would be pointless to talk to the friend. The attitude change has to come from W, not from the friend.
And Sandi and Starsky, ya the clock is reset. I'm bummed but not shocked.
W told a casual friend: My M is in a bad place. Instead of speaking up, I haven't. But I won't do that anymore. And now the kids are bigger and don't need me as much and I need to do things for me. Zew says "But I'm here now." and I said "I've been after you for years and you ignored me." It is too late, I am past the point of no return. I tried really hard. I've given and given and he's not given back. Zew says "You didn't tell me." I told him but he didn't listen. Zew says "You should have found other ways to communicate." So now it's my fault. And I always made sure he was taken care of, but I wasn't getting the emotional side out of the R.
So there it is. After 4 months, she just refreshed the WAW script. I've done 180s on a bunch of things, including getting off my computer and spending a lot more time with the kids, all of which has been good for me and they were changes I had to make. I feel much better about my involvement with the family now. None of these were the key issue though, at least according to her latest script.
There's no way to have a relationship with someone who doesn't want to have a relationship. She is hyper critical of everything I say or do, making her very unpleasant and unapproachable at home. She is still expending loads of energy making me the bad guy, including telling vile, outright slanderous lies to friends. I may be reading it wrong, but I think the fact that she still works so hard to hate me must mean she is still very conflicted and that should give me hope - i.e. if she were truly comfortable with leaving, she'd be over hating me to justify it.
I know I will survive all of this personally. GALing has shown me that there is no end of fun activities and people out there. Financially, D will be miserable for everyone, and I don't have a lot of years to recover. The thought of my kids coming from a broken home kills me and is a primary motivator to carry on; I fully understand that I control only half of that decision. And I still think my W is in there somewhere.
The dynamic is all wrong as far as W having any sense of loss of anything - she's working on her career, living at home, all expenses paid by me, living as though nothing is amiss, complaining all the while about how I'm making her life hell.
Quote:
We can't change the approach the WAS decides to take. We can only work on our own path / journey.
Sure, and if I look at the last 4 months, I want to summarize and see what has changed. W - has gone from angry to angry and tormented and on AD's and sleeping pills W - has recognized that A was screwing up her mind and impairing her ability to pursue career, but has broken her own imposed NC again. W - holding to the script; no hesitation W - preparing to leave, but there's a difference between talk and walk. Me - I feel better about a lot of things. Me - I know I can rebuild my life again without W Me - For someone who has always been patient with many things, this one is the counter-example. Can I go yet another round of A? I could piece for years, but how long can I stay with someone who says they want out, even if I don't trust them to know what they want?
And ideally: Hey W, go 12 weeks of NC with OM, then tell me how you feel about things. Then we'll work on it or wrap it up.
