Well, I'm piecing again - that much is clear. And things are very different than the last time around. We are moving S L O W L Y - no one is moving in and we are certainly not having sex at this point. We are going to MC and it has been great. We went to Disneyland as a family in July and San Diego over Labor Day weekend. We have had a lot of good talks, we are making progress in reestablishing intimacy and we are seeing each other daily (have been for awhile now). We make each other dinner, play with our S, all good stuff.
Backstory.....
As you may recall at the end of March/beginning of April we went to a joint counseling session with the intent of focusing on co-parenting. It ended in her telling me she was in a serious relationship with someone and about to introduce him to our S. I was crushed, devastated, and went totally dark. At that point I am pretty sure I gave up and walked away farther and faster than ever before (check my posts from around this time). No texting, no nothing....I was gone. Only communication that was necessary and about S. At that point, I believe she and the guy "David" had been dating three months - maybe four.
On June 14th, the Sunday before Fathers Day, I got an email from her basically saying that she was ready to move forward with our last remaining embryo on her own and wanted me to consider signing away my rights and responsibilities for it. Thanks to new communication skills, I lovingly, compassionately declined that offer and told her that it was something I could not do.
That pretty much opened the door to A LOT of conversation between the two of us, a lot of talks with God done by ourselves, the end of her relationship with OM, and set the stage for us to attempt piecing again. Nothing has materialized from the embryo just yet - but we both know we want it to.
In this process, she has talked about her growth while alone and what she has learned about herself, our marriage, why it failed and her contributions to that failure. I have done the same for her - and though I do not agree with some of the things she believes and feel some things are left off the list I think constituted her contributions, we are working through it well. She has spoken about not having the skills, background or working model to establish a healthy relationship. We both acknowledge (with the help of my C) that we had clear codependency issues -- hell, I didn't even know what that meant or looked like, but she (my C) was right. She (EX) has also talked about being without a voice in our marriage and not speaking up about things that mattered to her (which, BTW, ALL came the f*ck out on bomb day) and how that unknowingly sublimated into resentment - which really was the poison that killed our R. She regrets not speaking up more, not expressing her opinion, letting me drive the discussion as much as I did and so on. And, truthfully, she has a point -- all of that happened. The sad thing is that if she would have pushed back hard/harder back in the day I probably would not have taken it well and it just would have intensified into a larger conflict. We BOTH lacked communication and empathy skills with one another and I was a tad narcissistic (my C says that I was more along the lines of the "self absorbed" side of that scale....I wasn't a sociopath).
If you add all of that up...toss in THREE years of infertility and related treatments, being new parents, and a short list of other dysfunctional matters one conclusion snaps into clear focus.We were doomed.
So where are we now?
I mentioned in the post that got wiped out in the "great board purge of 14" that when someone once said "piecing is where the hard work begins" I scoffed at that notion because I didn't know what could be harder than what I was going through? Well, piecing ain't easy....but we are working through it. We both still harbor bad memories from the divorce and before and we are working on building back trust....it requires a lot of work and selflessness and I have to practice new skills...so does she, but I am doing it. She is emphatic about not wanting to go back to our old habits or personas that resulted in so much tumult in our lives. We are learned who the new person is and trying to trust and understand that person. How we communicate and how we like to be communicated to has changed and we have to navigate that sea. On the "affection front" we are holding hands when we are out or driving and I give her hour-long back rubs (I don't ask for them, not my thing) - but we are building back the basics of physical touch. As I noted before, my IC told me that women need to feel emotionally safe and secure before they become physical or sexual....while men need to feel accepted physically and/or sexually before they become emotional or vulnerable...so true. We are getting there. I sent her a flirty/borderline racy text last night basically saying I was really turned on by a skirt she was wearing earlier in the day and that it made her rear look perfect. She accepted the compliment and thanked me, but said try saying things verbally to her and not by text. Lesson learned.
Where am I failing/struggling?
People, I am having a hard, hard, hard, hard time moving past this David guy -- and before the 2x4 come flying at my head I know that it is male ego and little to nothing else. I don't like that he met my son, I could go on - but it doesn't matter I guess. Every now and then at her condo I see 1 or 2 little evidentiary pieces of what was probably their sex life and I get that sinking feeling in the pit of my stomach. What have I done wrong? I will tell you. I looked at the pictures on her phone without her knowledge and found pictures of the two of them together. It gave him a face in my head...not sure if that was a smart thing to do. In my weaker moments, despite small pieces of evidence to the contrary my head goes to a place where I feel as if she is just with me because she wants another baby...I confronted her on that (lovingly) and we talked through it. But still, at times I feel like it not for the embryo she would still be with that guy -- not sure if that is true or not. Her mom recently told me that her "time knowing David ran it's course" and that she "wanted a future". I need to try to breath and accept that and extinguish my ego.
On the extremely petty side of things (but possibly relatable to men), one thing bothers me. When she moved back to the house in the spring of 2012 I acknowledged that one of my faults was the fact that I never made her feel wanted physically -- I was not good at that communicated and infertility, IUIs and IVF torpedoed or sex life. So one day, I spent over an hour at Victoria's Secret, spending hundreds of dollars buying her new "things". I spread them out on the bed for her with a note telling her how attractive and sexy I thought she was and that I would never let her forget it again. A few weeks later she moved back out. Where does the petty come in? She rarely if ever wore anything of the things that I bought her for me/us....but I am SURE in the six months she was with the other guy he pretty much saw all of it. I know, I know, I know....get over it - and I will....but it just makes me sick to my stomach sometimes that I bought him such a nice gift that I intended for us....that I bought out of love. Part of me hopes that she burns all of it in the trash. I will now brace myself and my ego for the 2x4s.
Other than that, I am doing OK. I am putting her and her needs first and living the life that has bloomed in the wake of our divorce...I am being the new me and slowly but surely she is starting to notice I think....but more importantly trust it.
This happened:
The other morning I bought her a dozen and a half roses and brought them to her condo as she was getting ready for her day. Later in the day I texted her at work telling her that I bought them for her because I woke up that morning just wanting to love her. Her reply?"Thanks Chris. Each day I think I heal from our past a little more. I look forward to moving forward on this journey."
That was about as positive as I could expect.
So...that is most of it for now. I have done another stupid thing or two, pretty much all just snooping because I have trust issues still (just being honest) and want to see if something is being hidden from me. Still, we are doing well...son is doing well....and my family, well, that's another post.
More later.
Crimson....awww hell, we're all friends...you can call me Chris if you want to.
