Where I focus on charity and prayer

[DifRent]

This morning is so beautiful on the porch here at Mom's... drinking coffee and feeling melancholic and nostalgic for our vacation in the mountains of Albania last year... how we'd just wake up and have our coffee, enjoy the cool breezes and each other's company in a place far, far from the rest of the world. I didn't think I was taking that time for granted then, but now, I feel as if I did.

Today I'm probably heading back home... could stay at Mom's another night - or heck, another week - if I wanted to. But I have my divorce support group tonight and feel like I really need it. I miss my bed too, but I'm dreading going back to that house. A friend of ours is away on vacation and she's kindly allowing the boys to use the place while they wait for the internet to be turned on at their apartment, and she's offered for me to stay at her house as well. I might spend some time there - but I know I need to face my W at some point.

She did text yesterday and asked if I was in town because she hadn't seen me all weekend. I commented on a photo of her in FB that is particularly attractive with a gentle comment about how smitten I remain with her smile - she wrote back quickly that she likes that photo, too. I'm not at all looking forward to the next month or so, where we address the details of moving out. Such a paradox - I don't want to be there, it's hard to spend time with her. But I don't want to move, and I want my old W back. I suppose GALing and focusing on me will be easier once we get through this part.

I do have a question for whomever might be inclined to answer: I'm a minimalist, and 90% of the "things" in our home are hers - antiques and collectibles and artifacts from around the world. My goal is to buy some land and build a tiny house, and probably just rent a room from an acquaintance in the neighborhood until I get it built. So I just plan to take the bed, bedroom furniture, a chair, maybe put a sofa in storage. Aside from my clothes and books and a few kitchen appliances, that's about it. My move should take an hour.

I am not at all inclined to help my W with her move and all her stuff - which will take days. It would feel tantamount to digging my own grave, because I did not ask for this, do not want this, and feel as if she should bear the burden and feel the pressure of this decision in the form of having to do it all herself.

Am I being unreasonable here by not offering to help, or declining to help if she asks? Would helping her be something that might move me closer to my goal of R, or would standing my ground make her feel the weight of her decision even more? I'm not trying to be calculating in terms of eliciting a certain outcome here, I know I've been struggling with that a bit. Nor is this about "punishing" her. It's a consequence of her decision, as I see it... moving all that stuff. As for me and my PMA, it will just flat out feel better for me to take my own stuff and let her deal with hers, but I don't want to do something that hampers the ultimate goal of reconciliation.