Thanks so much for your insights so to answer your questions:
1. There was a time when we would argue, and her biggest complaint was that "this is not about you, its about me!" and that would be a common refrain. Essentially, she would have a problem (that may or may not have even involved me) and hearing her vent, I would somehow manage to find something that offended me (even in situations that were not at all directly applicable to me). I would then get upset and protest about my offense and would flood her and that would be the end of the conversation as she would shut down and I would storm off. Of course, idiot me thought that I had 'won' the argument since she had sorted of shut down and figured that this was a winning strategy. Well, that no longer happens. And hasn't in a while.
To your point of her 'being able to see the changes' I wonder if that is why she is almost WAW and not a WAW at this point. She keeps saying "why did it take me having to say that this isn't working and can't see it ever working for you to be nice!" It goes to her physical mannerisms - we will still go on 'date nights' and if we are talking about our son or other items she will be warm and engaging. But in any situation where there might be any touching, she is beyond rigid. In a cab back from dinner two weeks ago she literally had her arms clutched around her bag folder around her chest. Almost like she was defending against a swarm of people on the subway....she will almost never touch me. I almost jerked my head off a few days ago when she put her hand on my arm in response to a question during dinner with other family!
As for the emotionally safety point - it wraps back to the issue I think she has felt her entire life. Her mother (who is a loving woman) has never cried in front of her and has always told her to "either fix something or walk away." Her sister is very much the same. She had a long term boy friend before she met me, but from her account "yeah, but I was never serious about him" It lasted six years. The bottom line is that she has never had someone in her life that she's been emotionally safe with. And clearly the things I have done up to this point are EXACTLY THE OPPOSITE of the things that someone who is a 'giver' and extremely conflict averse should have to deal with. So yes, she is the one that feels emotionally unsafe. Its why she won't bring up unpleasantness until the last minute. Its why she hates talking about the relationship. But my fear is that the mixture of her conflict aversion and the past emotional damage is a recipe for a perfect hell - she can't move forward and neither can I.
I am not going to the IC because I have been using a DB coach, and I feel that the big breakthroughs that the IC helped me with are things that I am working on myself. First and foremost is the pathology of neurotic thinking and the massive fear that I have dealing with things that can massively affect my world. Like a divorce. I won't bring up the relationship because I can't bear to hear her say that she is leaving. This has become much better since the IC, but it is still there. I love the definition of 'detachment' posted above. But given my predicament I still don't know how to act. Burying her issues seems to do nothing but let them smolder. But talking about it yields only her default "things arent working, and I don't think they will" phrasing and she resists any discussion that tries to paint a different picture (i know that you can never guilt or convince someone to stay in a marriage, but anytime the conversation about the relationship is broached, it always goes down that direction"
She is fearful of leaving as well - when things are particularly heated, she will say "I don't know why you won't just let me go!" and I have repeated the Mantra and she just grows quiet. Its almost like she wants me to agree to separate to keep the guilt of her causing pain from affecting her.
What to do? How do I create an emotionally safe zone? How do we address the past wrongs/pains (it just so appears that I have to do something about this given that 4 months of me living 'a new and improved life' while making her less angry, did not change her request for me to move out (which I pushed back on and 'won', I guess.) One thing is that if this is a war of attrition, I would rather be miserable than deprive my son of a functioning two parent household (even the W will admit that we work very well together with regards to our son). He didn't do anything to deserve this, and the blood will not be on my hands if his world is torn apart.
