When is kindness enough?

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I received help from this forum and saw steady improvements. My wife’s coldness towards me started melting. We started having long talks while in the bedroom.

25th of May, a Monday, we talked about the upcoming divorce and all the related issues: kids alimony, splitting the assets, etc. We would sign the divorce papers as soon as we would get back to our home country to spend the summer holidays.

Two days later the day was cold. During the night, five minutes after going to bed, my wife put her feet next to mine to warm herself. We were talking about nothing. I took the chance and held her in my arms. She kept talking as if nothing had happened. This was our first contact in bed since, at least, November 2014.

The day after I did not sleep home because of my job.

The following day, when in bed, I held my wife again. This time she asked about my intentions. I told her I wanted my marriage back. She did not show any openness. She said it was too late, she felt nothing for me except friendship.

Saturday, we talked again during the night. She said she did not know what to do after the conversation of 25th May.

She told me she had had two affairs, one EA five years ago and a almost-PA some months ago. She explained it had been the marital crisis the cause of the affairs and not the opposite. She added she was a free spirit and had always felt the need to connect with similar spirits and that our marriage was non-existing at those times.

June 3rd we kissed, we held each other and slept that way.

June 11th we had physical intimacy but did not ML. This happened several times after.

She said she would give us a chance and stay abroad for one more year. She decided to renew her unpaid leave until August 2016, which she did later.

June 19th we went out for dinner with another couple. My W smoke in front of me. I already knew she had been smoking a cigarette from time to time, but this was the first time she did it in front of me. I need to explain. When we met my W smoked. Some months later she stopped because of me, as she knew my hatred for everything smoke related due to some lung cancer cases in my family. This was the first time I say my W smoking after that, although in late 2014, when kissing her, I once noticed she had been smoking.

June 23rd I said I wanted to ML to her. She said she was not ready.

We were at the beach and went for the first time to a nudist beach with the kids.

June 25th we ML for the first time in 18 months. After, she started crying saying that when things get broken they cannot be ever again glued to their original state.

June 26th we ML again. She enjoyed it.

We ML two more times after that.

July 2nd she asked me if I had already told my family that we were “on stand by”.

July 4th my W and kids flew home for the summer vacations in our homeland. I am supposed to join then in the end of August, so that we can return back all together.

At this time I was feeling great. ML had been an important sign and my W was aware of how important it was for me. I was being totally open to her and would talk for hours about my feelings. I had my wife and marriage back again and the peacing was going well. I knew we still had a lot of hard work to do and that the road ahead of us would not be easy, but the reconciliation was happening.