Do I walk away from WAW? (1)

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Whoa that was long. I can be pretty verbose, ill have to work on it. Luckily it is something my wife likes about me (I think?)

Some more quick facts about my sitch:

We are currently sleeping in different rooms. I moved into our office which has a futon for guests. Its also our dumping ground for to-be-folded laundry (which often never gets folded), and the other day I went through everything and put everything away for me and the kids, except her stuff which I put in two huge baskets which are now in her room. that felt good! in general, we are slackers when it comes to upkeep of the house. i have always been more of the chore doer, but i am no means a neat freak. W however, is pretty slack in this category, and I realize that I have built up a lot of resentment about this over the years. My 180 is to start doing all of the things I have slacked on doing around the house. But not necessarily for her.

My wife spends many nights out of the house now. I never really did, but I am now 100% not pressuring her or asking her about where she's going, only when she will return. She seems to be in disbelief that this is strange to the kids, to have her gone many nights, and for full days on the weekends, but I am not "using them" against her at the moment. There doesnt seem to be a good way to talk about what she is doing without pushing a button, so I am just detaching and being there for the kids.

I took my ring off for about a week as a kindof symbolic acceptance of whats going on. But it felt awful. I kept feeling for it and then being flooded with emotions. When I went to double check that it was still where I left it (in a random tchotchke drawer), it had HERS nesting inside of it. Hers hadnt been there when I'd put it in the drawer. That coincidence, that she had found the drawer I put the ring in without asking me, somehow...had some kind of heavy significance to it. When I went to put my ring back on, I tied a small piece of red string around her ring. I will now keep mine on until this is over.

Since actively starting to follow the DB "rules", I have seen some positives. W has noticed that my mood is up. On Sunday when she came home - at 4pm - I mentioned that the boys and I had pancakes for breakfast. "You went out?" "No, I made them" "Wow, I'm impressed!" Ive never been much in the kitchen and she has mentioned that over the years.

On Saturday, W left town all day to take her first session of a master herbalist class. When she came back that night, we sat and talked about it for 20 minutes. She was very exhilarated by the class, and I listened and engaged with her, asking questions and validating her. It was great to see her so happy about something and I told her this. Her reply was "Now we need to find something like this for YOU to do!" Then she left for the night "to celebrate".

A random breakthrough yesterday. If you can follow this, i applaud you. My Ws AP from her '11 affair is now in a relationship with her BFF. Its somewhat mind-boggling to me but I have accepted it, and I never see him. Until yesterday! I made plans to take S's to the zoo after school and so did BFF and W's old AP. I said "F it" and went anyway. And AP apologized to me! It was quite a moment and I thanked him. He said he wished he had listened to him (I finally gave in and called OM, which I know is usually a no-no), and that it was the greatest mistake he's ever made. BFF called me later to say we had both done a good job and that she was impressed, and that she had talked to W and she was also impressed. I guess that gives a sign that I am a forgiving person, or a bigger person, not sure.

Today she woke up with bad stomach pains, and struggled to get out the door to go to work. It's here where I struggle most with DBing. On the one hand, I feel like I need to leave her to handle her own struggles, so she knows what being "independent" truly means. On the other hand, I have always taken care of her, and I wonder if one thing she's wanted to change is for me to be more "present" and thoughtful in how I take care of her. So I thought for awhile, and decided to bring her some gatorade and rice crackers at work, before I went to work. I dropped them off and she was absolutely beaming, got up and gave me a big warm hug. I'm not taking anything away from it. It honestly just felt good to do something nice for her. I know what she needs to feel better more than anyone else.

thats it for now, i promise less rambling in the future!