Alpha - rollercoasting #3

[alpha99]

Thanks for your words of support and encouragement Luis.

Just another thing that has popped into my head that may assist anyone else reading this. My wife has said on many occasions in recent weeks that she is over everything, that she feels relief, that she has done her grieving etc. It has been very easy to get upset over these kinds of statements. One thing that springs to mind is one of sandi2's 37 rules: Believe none of what you hear and half of what you see.

Why do I say that?

Well, it's just come to me: when our S was in hospital last week, at one point when W and I hadn't been getting on together during our spell sat on the ward with our son (I think he was asleep at this point), I said that the reason I was being emotional now and not before was because it had been easier just seeing her in small doses dropping the kids off, and now we had to spend a long time together it was very hard. Just thinking back now, W agreed. She said something along the lines of 'I know, it is hard. That's why I didn't want you to come to the ward all day.' So maybe (and it's a maybe I know) her initial refusal for me to come to the ward was not simply a case of her being nasty (in the events running up to my S being in hospital, even in the morning time of that day, she had been quite nice - when I was sick and couldn't look after our daugther she said I hope you get better soon on the phone) but rather a way of her distancing herself from having to be around me due to her not actually being over everything as she had claimed. I didn't believe her being over things claims at the time. Although hurtful I did doubt that you could get over a 10 year R, marriage and children in such a short space of time. I guess this goes to show that she is hurting and is grieving and that there have been such deep feelings there in the past that they simply don't just disappear over night. Thinking about that makes me quite positive, that if it is so that she has been having a hard time seeing me or being around me, despite her contrary appearance and demeanor, then it only goes to show how committed she had previously been to the R and that if DB'ing is done correctly over time there may be a way of making things right again.

I know I am not in control of the time frame of things working themselves out, if they ever do, but I can see this taking many months to do so. I feel like my W needs to move into her own place, be free of her parents' influence, have time to get over her negative feelings about me, and then maybe even more time to work on drawing her back in with my new and improved self. We will have regular contact in that time because of the kids, but I plan on keeping things very light and breezy, just communicating in a neighbourly way, and waiting, watching, checking results and adapting as necessary.