Newby here, desperate for some advice (thread 2)

[JRuss]

A bit of gut punch last night.

I was working in the backyard, and W was talking on her cellphone on our screen porch and didn't know I was back there. I overheard her talking to a friend (not sure which one, but one of two I'm sure who act as human echo chambers for her, telling her she's right in all of this, that she deserves to be happy -- I hate their [expletive] guts) and saying something like "I love him, just not the way a wife is supposed to love her husband". She then went on to say something like "things have quieted down, and we're not fighting, but living in the house, sleeping in the same bed, acting like nothing has happened around the kids is weird, and I'm afraid it's giving him false hope". The last thing I heard was "I can see him making lots of little 'tweaks' in his life and am just afraid he's still hoping."

I beat a retreat at that point because I didn't really want to hear any more. Pretty much just confirmation of what I always struggle with: Wanting any of this stuff I'm doing to matter TO HER, but again getting confirmation that it really is only about me and my future life, without her.

It is so discouraging knowing that the hundreds of hours of meditation, IC, getting fit, teaching myself how to listen, completely eradicating my temper from our lives for at least the last year -- addressing and changing everything I've been told was part of the problem -- all just amount to "tweaks" in her mind. I'm two years into trying to improve myself, albeit still only recently really trying DB.

Sorry, really just wallowing in it, and I know that isn't the DB way. This is so [Expletive] up.