Onwards and upwards.

[Barry]

Hi Mozza. Thanks for the encouragement regarding opening up. There’s a few things I’d like to pick up on in your post...just to clarify my thoughts.

My main concern is that you're now trying to reject her to make up for her rejection of you.

It's really "because of", not "to make up for". I don't think I'm feeling this way out of any sense of revenge or retaliation. I see it as a means to an end in my need to detach and as I say, it's worked wonders for W in seeing me in a negative light.

You're hurt so you find reasons to say that you don't want her after all.

I DO want her though...more than anything else, but I can't have her (at least now, maybe never). We will be divorced soon. I can go round and round in circles in my mind thinking of the woman I love (which I do very much) and who loved me, but that woman is not in my W's mind, body & soul at the moment. Maybe she'll come back, maybe not. To be honest, no matter how I think of her, she is still in my thoughts all the time in some way – how could she not be.

And you're going further by almost giving up on your sitch.

I can't stres enough that giving up is not my preference at all. I don't want to give up on my M or on her, but I simply can't continue to feel like a dog that's constantly kicked by its owner and yet keeps coming back happily for more.
I've told my W that I'll always leave a path to R open to her, but that I WILL move on with my life without her and won't sit around moping about the fact that she no longer loves me.
W is the only woman I want in my life, despite my list of negative points about her. As I mentioned, there is a positive list too (maybe I should post that to add some balance to my posts?) but that feels like a list of what I'm losing and only causes me pain. I don't see any value in having it in the forefront of my mind right now. I try to keep the loving thoughts to a minimum at the moment.

So I encourage you to think whether you can step back a little and accept that you don't know the future. That leaving your options open holds more promises for you.

Of course you’re right in that no one can know the future for certain. What I do know for certain is that once I get to the stage financially that I'm able to take W's offer, I'll then have to file for the protection reasons I've mentioned before. I don't have an option here, and D does seem to be the final nail in the coffin for us. No, I don't know for sure that we will definatly D - W may stop all this at any point, but me looking at my sitch through rose tinted glasses is not the way forward. It's ok for all of us to have a glimmer of hope, so long as we don't trick ourselves into being unrealistic.

You don't know if your W will change her mind about you (did you know she was going to leave you?).

Not so much know she would, but I knew she was capable of it. Because we'd had a similar (although smaller scale in terms of separated time) BD last year, I tried to do all I could to be a better person so she would love me again. I have to admit that she tried to, and therein lay her problem. She didn't think it "normal" that you should have to try and love someone. To her it was there or it wasn't. I tried to say to W that long marriages can be hard work, but you DO have to put the work into the emotional side. Anyway, we got to the point where she said she did love me and wished it hadn't have happened (no apology offered - but I didn't really expect one) but as things started to go sour again, I knew this time that she was quite capable of another BD.

You don't know what she'll reflect upon in the coming year about her personal changes. You don't know where your mind will wander during the same period. You don't know. Try to ban the "always" and "never" from your thoughts, recognizing the principle of impermanence, the same one that has brought this unexpected S in our lives.

I truly hope you're right with this ^ ^ Mozza. I hope W does reflect on things, and yes, I do still have some hope for our R. I don't think it will happen in time to call off the D that I'll be setting in motion though. Although I dont know that W wouldn't want to R with me after D, I have known her a very long time and it just doesn't seem likely. I do hope I'm wrong about that. I suppose the only never I should remember is that I told W I'd never give up on her completley even though I will move on without her.
I can't have it both ways I guess.