as_it_is - my adventure continues (part 4)

[asitis]

I agree that there's a good chance I won't get an answer. Of course I'm not happy with that, and it would be helpful to understand. But I know that I may not get what I want in many, many ways. It is just one of the things that has really surprised me about her.

On another note, had my DB coaching. She agreed that my instinct that her having me looking for signs & starting the inviting W do to things w/ kids & I occasionally sounds good, and that it is about trying and seeing how it goes, and stopping what doesn't work. She also liked my shift in focus to stop watching her for signs and focusing on moving ahead to get to my life.

We talked about my buying the place settings etc. She liked this was both going to send her a signal, but also was an opportunity to open connection and plant seeds for the next stage (if it comes) with new threat of seeming to pursue. Since W is going to be in that space, include her in some of the decisions about what to do. Both W & I have fairly good aesthetic sense, and I'm sticking with things that are safely within both our tastes (they are similar enough to what we bought as a couple). But now ask her opinion about some of those next choices to add some zip, like picking out the place mats & napkins. Treat it like an appendix to the house. Something we share and she is part of that we can work on to please both of us.

Told W what I got and why. She was pleased. I told her I would like her help or get her input on some of the next purchases to go with the stuff I got. She was very happy to help and seemed genuinely excited that we were moving the apartment we share past the crash pad stage to some place we can have friends over and feels more like a home.

The other thing DB coach suggested was that I explicitly tell W that I get that she doesn't see us as a couple, and that I'm not about to resist or change her mind. That I knew she would not make a rash decision and that she was making a decision that she felt she needed & I wanted her to be happy along with all the rest of us. I then suggested that instead of involving someone else in the negotiations at this stage that we start with some of the things we are likely to agree on and work from there. If we get to things where we can resolve something or need legal advice, we can deal with that then. She said she was thinking along the same lines now that she had looked into how things work in a D (she has apparently been reading the D for Dummies book my MiL bought her months ago, as it is not where it has sat since then). She was going to suggest the same thing.

The reason for this suggestion was that DB coach said that D negotiations are actually an opportunity to develop bonds and intimacy by being able to work well together without help to address the needs of both of us. Hadn't really though about it that way, to be frank, but it make sense. If we can work well through this most difficult time of our R, that helps the R (even if it doesn't save the M).

Not excited about this, but she's in agreement. She said that neither of us is happy with this, and that she has gone so slowly because she really wanted to by totally sure. That of course wasn't fun to here, didn't react. Funny how you can get comfortable with a route ahead, but doing it is still emotionally difficult when you are actually doing it.

So she is agreed we will find some time soon to sit down and start the process. I did say that we can move forward to create a better S that we can live w/ and take it from there, and that while some things will need to be legally settled for a D but that once we get to that place the big thing seems not to be the final legal arrangement but that we've taken care of the living arrangements so that we feel we can live our lives. I left it a bit vague. Wanted to say that I thought when we got to that point, we didn't need to rush the D, but could just stay give that true S some time while we saw how that arrangement worked out. Not that I want to stall the D, although having that real space and sense of living her own life may lead to a change of view before we take the final step. More that almost every step there have been decisions, seeing how that goes, then some adjustment that we usually both agree would be good. But I caught my self getting too caught up in thinking about how that stage could go when we have no idea what will grow out of this stage one way or another.

We also did some chatting about my week of classes (both teaching & as student), some of her new students, what I'd be working on that was of interest to both of us. Low key chat.

Then I went to play w/ S3 who had wanted my attention.

Good encounter, a bit of yuck for me along the way, and now back to all the stuff going on in my life.