After calling my family and talking with them a bit, I decided to give my STXW a call back. I had told her I would return her call when I was feeling better and I was. She didn't pick up but called me back about an hour later.
We talked for the next two and a half hours.
I'll try to stick to the DB points as they are what's relevant, and am using this a bit as a brain dump too. I wanted to come on last night while it was all fresh in my head, but had plans with my neighbors. Here is my food for thought from the conversation:
1) WAW said, "I'm not sure what happened but one day a week or so ago I woke up and had the feeling that you had moved on. That you weren't going to try to convince me that we should get back together so I felt comfortable calling and reaching out to you."
Interesting how many vets say this exact thing happens when you really drop the rope. I don't think I particularly dropped it harder on the day she felt it, but it's been pretty dropped lately.
2) At one point she told me we are "still married and raising a child together (referring to Woofie)" but then also told me she tells her friends that she still talks with her "ex husband"
3) We did end up having some relationship conversations, initiated by her. They didn't really go anywhere, and I validated as best as I could, she did the same saying she wished she'd known how I really felt at times. On one occasion when I did completely disagree with her I said, "I'd like to challenge that belief and present you with what my motivation was for saying XYZ." I then told her how I was feeling at the time and why I said what I said. Did it change her mind? Not at all. But in this case, I wanted to be heard.
I know it's not strict DB, and it was because I felt like I was being misjudged over and over in a theme that wasn't true. My WAW believed that any time I had a disagreement with her that I was preventing her from being who she really wanted to be. This is not true, although it was how she experienced me.
Oddly enough, we both agreed that rehashing the past wasn't of value since we were both trying to protect our own subjective experience. It was an oddly emotionally intelligent conversation for two people in the midst of a D and we both also acknowledged how unique it was that we had calmer more respectful conversations now than when we were M.
My take away from it was that my STXW has a lens that she sees my actions through. Even if my actions have other intentions they can still be seen as fitting the particular pattern she believes they do. I do the same with her.
She viewed most of the negative actions I did from having substance issues, to arguing over how best to raise Woofie as my need to keep her from becoming who she was meant to be. I viewed most of the challenges she presented me as reasons that she would eventually leave me. Unfortunately we didn't have the skill or awareness to counter this when we were together.
Another point that I made was that I thought it should be taken into consideration that even though I had challenges and lacked real relationship skill, I was also under an inordinate amount of stress. I was running three start up businesses at one point in our M, working 7 days a week for months, broke, and also doing all of that with a thriving addiction.
My WAW rightly told me that no matter what was going on in my outside life I chose to show up in unskillful ways. That I could have made different choices but didn't. That no one made me take the frustrations of my life out on my M, or deal with them by upping my substance use.
I agreed with her on that and was actually thankful that she called me out on it. I don't want my life circumstances to dictate my reactions ever again. I'm not saying I plan on trying to be perfect, but if my outside circumstances are making me act like an a-hole then I need to change them, or ask for help. Felt good to say, "You know what, you're right, at the end of the day, I'm 100% responsible for how I show up in a relationship."
4) STXW told me that the reason she never pursued reconciliation with us was because doing so would have prevented each of us from fully becoming the person that we are today. That I wouldn't have left my job and started my new path, and she wouldn't have developed as much as she has. I know, believe nothing, but I agree with her that it wasn't until I knew in my heart that she was gone that I decided to change the course of my life drastically.
5) At no point did she mention D, the attorney, the fact that technically we should have had a meeting already and haven't.
6) I did tell her what I want out of my next relationship - friendship, adventure, support, connection, someone who gives me a feeling that it's safe to F up, and a woman who believes she was the luckiest woman in the world to be with me. My WAW told me that I would have it. I didn't tell her that part of me hopes that it's her. Truly at this point I want the woman I'm with to have those qualities more so than to have my WAW back.
7) Lastly, and this is something I'm going to take to heart and keep working on - my WAW said that she did not feel safe in our M. Emotionally unsafe because when she came to me with issues I wouldn't address them. It pains me to remember but I would say, "I don't have time for your chit right now, I have businesses to run." Ouch. This is true. Not all the time, but often I also didn't trust that her concerns weren't just ploys for her to have an out to leave me. NMMNG shown the light on that one, I was codependent as hell in my M.
She also told me that she didn't feel safe physically and that was a shock to me. There was no violence in our M, but she said she felt like I was holding a tremendous amount of anger down with my substance use and that at some point it would boil over and I would explode. I own guns and have been professionally trained with them so she said she was scared of me at times. I consider myself a peaceful person, don't yell (unless I'm driving and late...but nobody's perfect) but don't think she was making this up.
That's completely unacceptable to me on my own part and know now to really work on speaking my feelings upfront so they don't turn inward and fester. I also need to be the kind of man that makes his partner feel like she is safe in all areas of her life. Time to re read NMMNG.
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All in all it was the same mix of beautiful connection and heartbreak that all of our talks are. I see so many areas where I acted poorly in our M, and so many areas that she could have handled better too. I wonder if we really were a bad match for each other or if who we were at the time wasn't right.
Neither of us made the other better and we each work in the "making people better" business. That's telling to me and can't be denied, I just want to know why that was the case.
The woman I spoke to on the phone yesterday was the woman I fell in love with years ago only significantly more confident and wise. What an incredible turn on. She's become the woman she's always wanted to be, but only after leaving me.
She told me she was in shock to hear the ways that I now talk and how I handle difficulty, and that she used to get glimpses of who I am now but they would disappear. I've become the man I've always wanted to be but it took her leaving me to get here. What a shame, but yet, how amazing at the same time since it would have been more of a shame had the growth never come to light for either of us.
From a DB standpoint - I'm 99% sure I'm still getting D, and that my STXW still loves me but has no plans to reestablish anything other than a friendship. This call was a positive on a number of levels too. She got to say things I believe she's needed to say for a long time and I validated them. I too got to say things that I needed to be heard on and said them in a way that wasn't blaming. I also took responsibility for my own actions in our M.
Today I have a slight hangover from the call. As always, the day after I feel a bit of emptiness after we connect so deeply. I miss her and miss having her in my life. I did tell her, and I mean this, that I'd rather have the limited, yet deep connection we have now and not have her physically in my life than to have it the other way around.
We both said, "I love you." and left it at that.
That's my Xmas Story fellow DB'ers.
I'm open if anyone has a thought or two on what I can do next to try to save my M....or if following my new path, doing my adventure next year, and living happily is still the best version of DB'ing at this point.
Love you all,
PP
M 39 W 36 T5 M3 BD - 1/15 Separated - Same Day Served 9/15 D finalized 6/17
