Hopeless in NYC

[eclipse]

Progress! Managed a two hour phone conversation. W has downgraded the request from divorce to separation and asked if I would give it to her if she goes to therapy for x period of time. Still threatening with the lawyers as an "alternative." Lots of the old statements about how I will change back eventually in two years, we're not right for each other, I am not really a family man and had to be forced, but much calmer and with much less bitter conviction this time. She asked if it makes sense to give her this time to see if whatever changes I make would actually stick in the long-term (perhaps the most reasonable thing I've heard so far). Also mentioned how she still wants another child but doesn't like the personality of our daughter (because that part comes from me) and that she would never want to live through the way I behaved while raising her. However, at the very core of it all, and in her own words, she says she "[doesn't] feel that [she] can trust [me] and that [she] opened her heart so many times before and [I] stomped on it." She claims she needs time to recover, but says she will most likely want to date other people during that time and that I should at least try doing the same. But I can't, for course, and if she does it seems it wouldn't increase the chances of stitching the family back together. I've left her alone completely as of late, seems to be working out for everyone. Dunno...maybe more time is needed yet.