Living with WAW who will not leave

[Casey]

Several things have occurred since my last post. Today I took my S7 to the swimming pool and worked with him on improving his swimming. I have not been as involved with my son as I should have been and it felt good to put some effort into doing something with him. I was thinking about it tonight; how I tried so hard to get scraps of attention from my WAW for the past year, and the irony of how hard my son has tried to get scraps of my attention. I have decided that whatever else happens, my son needs to have a greater importance in my life than he has been.

I also got some lap swimming in; my body is no longer used to that kind of activity and I only swam about 10 laps. But it is a start and my goal is to be swimming a mile at a session by the end of the year. I am not fat but I have let my weight get away from me since I left the military and it is a constant irritation to my self esteem.

GAL activity included going out to dinner with friends on my day off; still working on resuming my flight instruction.

W and I got into a long R talk Monday night; I didn't mean to get into that but we kept things civil. We talked about her moving out and she was very emotional but she didn't back down from living on her own. However, I expect that she will not move unless I keep nagging her about it. For me, seeing OMs while living in apt that I pay for is a firm boundary and I expect her to go and pay her own way if she wants to do that. It will be easier to work on GAL and make myself into someone that W would be a fool to leave once she is not around every day getting resentful. W will never feel a sense of loss as long as we see one another every day. From my reading of others threads, it seems to me the most successful were those who were able to withdraw and cause their W to pursue them.

I also read all of Bond's threads that I could find. I never managed to find the ones where he reconciled though, but it was definately inspirational! There are many here who have wise advice and Sandi2, Bond, and Starsky are welcome to use the 2x4s on me as required.