Well, I guess there were a bunch of small things that *maybe* moved her closer back to me....and one major. All told, I think that over time she began to see that I really wasn't seething or out for blood or anything. Truthfully, I never was - but I am now seeing that through her lens ANYTHING I did was seen as a sign of hostility or attack -- it just made it easier to leave if you vilify someone - real or imagined. But over time, as things settled, I think she realized or saw that I was getting calm. I mean, that's not that I didn't have bad feelings or hurt anymore -- I certainly did -- but I processed differently and I realized that she was not the one to show those emotions to. She has said that "kindness and compassion" were things that kind of pulled her back in. So, when vets here tell you watch your words, your affect, how you react....please, please please listen. It does matter -- a lot. I am living proof. That's not to say you need to be a doormat (I think I walked the line there a few times to be honest) but practice kindness is your words and peace in your affect. I STILL rely on that to this day.
I think one of the other minor (or major depending on who you talk to) things was that I really hit a point where I stopped everything. I stopped letter-writing, I stopped non-essential texting...I just gave up and though I didn't at all WANT to I started accepting my life - as much as I didn't like it at the time. I fired up the "dating machine" and had a few relationships.....I was really trying to cut loose and move forward. I was also visiting my IC weekly or bi-weekly....that really helped.
Now that we have kind of talked about it a bit I think she also struggled seeing another man in a "father" role for our son. Her mother kind of validated this for me later - and, honestly, I really struggled with the notion of another woman being in a motherly role for him as well. I am not saying that is necessarily healthy....I'm just saying that was my mindset at the time. No one I ever dated in that 3 year period ever met my son....and believe me, nearly all of them asked. I just wasn't ready or able to move a relationship to that place.
Finally, and there really isn't much to elaborate on here, we had our son through IVF and had embryos left over. NEITHER of us wanted to get rid of them and at the heart of us we didn't want to use them without each other. That kind of drew us back in again.
To address a few of the comments - nope, reconciling is not easy. It is hard, hard, hard emotional work. There is a euphoria that comes along reuniting - but eventually that dissipates and you are looking eye to eye with that person trying to rebuild, create better habits, communicate more openly, and just be...."better"....than you were before. There is residual hurt that you have to deal with and talk through, there is a period where physical and emotional intimacy is not where you want it to be...and that can last longer than you think (again...patience is muscle you need to build!). Why? Because you are literally reaching into the ashes for salvageable pieces of what was and try to put them all back together again. Any image you had of how things were before are most likely never going to be again. And, frankly, that is OK.....because clearly what we were all doing before was not working.
