We have been slowly splitting our financial lives over the last few weeks, started by me. I had been paying almost all of the bills, so she’s taken back her car payment, looked into getting separate insurance, etc. I changed passwords, email address on utilities, my financial accounts, etc. We decided after her initial looking not split car insurance right now, as we have a multi line discount so it’s cheaper for her if we leave it as is. She will just pay hers when it’s due and I pay mine, but accounts stay linked. Today I went to split the cell phones, but I was told I needed to basically pay off my hardware before I could split the account. Her response when I got back and told her this was “You didn’t do that did you? We can take turns paying for now”. I had not done it, and am not sure at this point what I will do.
Long story short, we need to start to split these things and others at some point, but neither of us feels any real harm in not doing so immediately. Unclear what that means, cause it’s all mind reading if I try. We haven’t truly discussed if this is going to be a legal separation, or just the road to D, and quite honestly I’m not going to ask. I won’t stop her from D at this point, but I am not going to help her get there either.
In terms of her finalizing the move this coming weekend, I have all along said I was happy to help her in any way she needed. I reiterated again today when she arrived that I was happy to help her as needed, packing or moving, and then left to go run a few errands. When I got back, and about an hour into her further packing with me here, I realized it was a lot harder on me emotionally than I thought it would be. I helped disassemble the spare bed (which is hers) and had strong deja vu with the beginning of our relationship, as I had driven her to IKEA 2 hours away to buy said bed almost 8 years ago. I told her all of this, and that as much as I wanted to help I was no longer sure I could keep it to together emotionally. She echoed my sentiment about this being hard, and I acknowledged that this was no easier for her than it was for me as we both stood in the kitchen tearing up. She made mention that she didn’t want even her parents to help her move and just wanted to do the entire thing all alone. I told her that I’d clearly mentioned i was willing to help half a dozen times, realized i was almost being pushy about it now, and that I would shut up and let her decide how she wanted that day to go.
Later on we ended up sitting on the back porch having a beer and just discussing the coming week’s work schedules, plans, and caught up on how friends and family are doing. I made mention that it’s been nice the last few weeks just enjoying time together for a change, to which she jokingly and with a smile said “yeah, it’s been ok”. In W speak that means she agree’s but is dodging emotion with humor. This is important because on more than one occasion previously I made mention of feeling as though we had nothing to talk about anymore, and I was clearly wrong.
Also at some point I asked if she was still feeling unsettled about work being so busy, and her response was “I’m unsettled with every aspect of my life right now”. I think there’s a part of her that wants to leave everything behind and move away, far away, and escape this and whatever else she’s going through. it’s almost MLC, but I don’t think advanced enough to really be called that.
It may also help to note that after each in person contact we’ve had, whether at a weekday lunch or evenings / weekends at the house, when it’s time to leave there are hugs freely given. I was the initiator before today, but was never awkward IMO and seemed freely reciprocated. She initiated it before leaving today twice (I was not going to, after really considering how to start to detach / act as if). She also sent me a text this evening saying after having been here the last two days packing and being around our house, our stuff, and our two cats that it must have been really hard for me lately and that she was sorry for this. I told her it was in fact hard, but no apology necessary.
Also, over the last two weekends i’ve been out with friends at bars and doing whatever, which she has been aware of. In both cases she txt me in the evening with something like “I know it’s none of my business but let me know when you’re home safe please?”.
This is getting lengthy, but the point of it is that I take all of this as indications that some level of love and affection is still there, and that just furthers my gut feeling that once she’s out and has time to truly be alone the road back may become apparent to her, perhaps even somewhat quickly. However, I’m telling myself that this is not a given, and I'm still looking at this from the standpoint of being open to reconciliation, hoping for it in fact, but still trying to prepare for D and do things for me and not for our M.
I’ve told both my parents and her parents (over a somewhat lengthy phone call) that I’ve not given up, but firmly believe she has to leave before anything has any hope of changing/moving towards R again. Everyone more or less agrees, and everyone would rather see this work out than not, so I have that going for me here as well. In fact, the words W used were “there’s no sides here per se but if there were my parents are more on yours than mine”.
All of this is hard, and confusing since there doesn’t seem to be any ill feelings, animosity, fighting etc. I also have people asking me how she can ever truly feel loss with me being the way I am now (friends?), and I get that. I’m just not sure we are at the point in this process where going dark is going to help this.
Like most I would love to start piecing now, but as I’ve read several times, this is a marathon, not a sprint.
Me:36 W:30 M:2.75 T:7 BD: 4/2015 ILYBNILWY: 5/2015 W Moved Out: 5/2015 W filed for D: 7/2015
