Newbie Error- LRT too Soon- help!

[Bart42]

So in the session with the divorce Mediator he says "we can be ready to file in 3-5 weeks" and W became a deer in the headlights. She is not ready to put the date on the calendar for the next session and "needs a few weeks to find and meet with her own attorney.” Now its my job to keep the schedule moving without seeming like a jerk- told her the date can be a few weeks out but we need to get it scheduled. We'll see how that goes.

Then the unexpected happens- W says (on saturday) "I might go out tonight." (all her previous hookups are under the guise of a day of errands or late work nights). I say "so long as we are pretending to be a family for our kids I am not comfortable with you acting like you are single. If that's the way its going to be we should fast track the D and establish some ground rules about who goes out when.” So that was half boundary, half controlling. Best I could do when caught off guard.

But then W says “I guess Im jealous- you are handling this so much better than I am and are out doing things- I need to do more of that too.”

So my GAL is getting noticed, but instead of pulling her closer, its making her want to GAL herself.

She said again she’s not ready for S/D and I could see the hurt in her eyes. But its also clear she’s not ready to be truthful or give up OM. So that made be backslide a bit and say “When I’m divorced I want to be able to say that I tried everything in my power to save my M, but I’ve tried everything I can think of and I’m out of ideas, so this is the only option.” Then I walked out. This inferred I’d be willing to slow down/talk if she had any ideas (which was bad) but I wanted to show some compassion and tough love because being an a*hole was definitely one of my previous shortcomings.

Its all so hard when I just want to backslide and say “lets work on R”- which I know would be the wrong move. Push too hard and she goes off the reservation, hates me and becomes a full WAW. Ease off too much and she loses all respect and cake eats. So hard to know where the line is and what my next step should be.

Day by Day.