Newby here, desperate for some advice (thread 2)

[JRuss]

Just an update, not so much because anything happened of any import, but more to show how little to nothing seems to happen, and to share how that makes me feel (shameless bid for support).

W had to work late last night and came home exhausted. I had made tacos for me and S9 (D12 is at overnight camp this week) and had saved her some, which she seemed to appreciate.

After she ate, she watched some of the Convention, and I joined her on the couch because I like Al Franken from back in his SNL days. I wanted to sit close to her, maybe even rub her feet (she loves that), but I at least resisted that impulse. I went to bed first and read; she joined me, which is a bit of a departure (she's often lately holed up somewhere else to avoid me), but she only read for a moment before turning out the light, so not much can be interpreted one way or the other, I don't think.

Woke up this AM, she was first to leave, she gave me a peck on the cheek, but, there, again, I was between her and the door (my favorite place to drink my coffee), and I think she just did it so as not to be awkward. Other days she hasn't kissed me though, and I've been in the same place, so who knows.

All of which is to say (i) detachment is still completely illusive, even as I get better at faking like I'm detached when I'm around her, and (ii) days go by, without much of anything happening, and, mentally, I check off another day gone as we apparently move closer to the day we split. It is so hard not to push things, because the always lurking fear is each day is just something she has to get through before she can say she did enough to make it any worse than it has to be for the kids.

I tell myself it still hasn't even been a month since she was formally working with a realtor looking at a house to move out to, and then it seems like maybe there's been an improvement of sorts. Then I realize this isn't what a detached or even detaching person thinks or feels, and I get frustrated with myself. Ugh.

Day by day is my internal mantra -- just need to figure out how to make it the way I actually live my life. There is still just a lot of fear, worry, etc. that we're moving toward something I really don't want. Intellectually I know that that's exactly what we are doing, and that we won't get off that path unless/until she decides she doesn't want to be on it, but my emotional connection is still painfully strong, and I don't have the detachment that others here seem to have been able to find.