Still hanging on ... just

[Oluwa]

Hi.

So not too much to report after the horrible weekend.

I didnt sleep well sunday, so work was a struggle as it always it these days. In the evening W called me into the MBR to tell me something funny about something the kids did. AFter that I decided to stay in the bedroom and kind of dosed off to sleep. I decided I would sleep there that night. She didnt say anything about me sleeping there. Later I seemed to have woken her up as she said you keep moving around. I said I didn't realise and then 10 minutes later she left to sleep in home theatre (where I normally sleep). Normally I would offer to move there, but decided to just let her go there.

Come the morning she comes in to get ready and I make sure I am not looking at her, as she has said before why do you stare at me when I am getting ready.

Rest of week pretty uneventful in terms of our interactions. I kept contact to a minimum in general, more texts from her about kids stuff etc that anything else.

Then tonight when we were serving the food and all kids were there, she said "Did you know that the average age for a woman to get divorced is 41.7". (shes 41.9). I said "Yeah! mid life crisis time!", pretty calmly. I said "did you read that in the book I gave you ?". She said "Yes!". The book is a free PDF I got called "Should I keep trying to work it out?". I searched the content of the book later and there is no reference to this, so she is obviously reading more about divorce or talking to someone else.

Later I went into the bedroom to talk to her about some things. We are going to the school tomorrow to talk to the school pyschologist about D14. She is doing really well at school, but at home is not very happy at all. I told W that we need to decide what to tell her, as she is bound to ask us how homelife is, in relation to D14. She said, "I dont think we need to talk about our Marriage, its not relevant". I'm likely shocked that she doesn't believe its relevant. She said "I don't think that they know anything is wrong, we have always argued anyway." I said "We used ot argue, we dont anymmore." You will all be familiar with the change in the R from arguing to silence, which MWD describes well in WAWS. So she says "well you can if you think its important, but I dont think it is relevant". I said "I am just asking that we agree what we want to say in terms of boundaries, but she should have the full picture if she is able to help jessica at all".

So she puts on TV and starts watching, this is her usual pattern and its so boring. But I just don't know if she does it because she is so sad with her life that that is all she wants to do or this is what she would do if our marriage was wonderful and she was in love with me!

Anyway, I stew for a bit and then ask "So did you learn anything else from the book then?", she does not react to the question at all. I struggle and struggle and manage to not say anything else about it. She quite happily says stuff about what is on TV etc, but no reference to what I said. A couple of times she is on her phone sending either texts or messages in WhatsApp. I stew over this, because I just keep thinking that she is becoming more distant and maybe an EA has started, although it could only be at work. I guess I am no where near in a position to ask to read what is on her phone, this would show pursuing behaviour ? I would rather know, so I can start the separation as I don't think I can hang around waiting for her to finish an affair like some of you guys have done.

Honestly I hate these feelings, when I am away from her I am focussing on me and doing GAL, I am starting to feel confident I will be OK etc, but then soon as I am in her presecence again it all starts to flood back. Before I was trying to detach/distance I would make a point of engaging with her, trying to be upbeat and interesting. We would watch TV together and she would sometimes come to cuddle me etc. Now I don't engage much with her, or watch TV with her, it feels horrible, it feels like I am closing the chapter on my marriage. I know everyone has told me before, but does keeping away and not being involve really produce results ?

I eventually got up and left the room, she was drifting off to sleep as she usually does early. She said oh arent you watching it (the tv program), I said "No" and left. As I left she said can you turn of the bedroom lights which I did.

Then I went onto the PC and did a search of all mobile nos (aka snooping), trying to see what numbers she had been contacting etc. I did this for about an hour and hated every moment of it, but I still did it. I had some plans for my evening and wasted all the time doing that instead....idiot.

I have been reading some other material as well as the DR book, and have come across alot of stuff called "sh*t tests". This is when a woman consciously or subconsciously tests you, like a temperature check I guess. They are normally things that are nasty or potentionally upsetting to you. She is doing it to see where you are. I think that the comment about age for divorce was a sh*t test from her. And I did a bit better as I didn't initially pursue, but I did eventually ask her what else she had learned from the book, which she won by not responding to at all and guess now knows I still firmly attached like a dog.

Our human relationships really like this, do people really manipulate each other to this level? I guess they do, and I guess I do as well in reality, just from a weak/pursuer point of view.

To end in a positive note, I re-joined a gym this evening on the way home from work. I have been working out of my comfort zone trying different things, done yoga classes, aikido (martial arts) and now I am going back to the gym. When I say going back to, I have gym memberships before but only used them for treadmill/cardio. I intend to start strength training/weights to build some muscle to complement my yoga and running. I will probably drop the Aikido as all though I was excited to start doing it, I injured my shoulder the last time and the class times are hard to get to regularly.

Weight lifting is so not me, but I feel that trying new things and pushing myself into them, although very uncomfortable, helps with my confidence in dealing with this marriage.