MLC W and preparing for S or D in the new year

[Zues126]

So W gave clarifying R comments about her recent wamth, affection, and ML to me while at the same time pushing for our S in the coming weeks. To her, H now listens to W and understands W and is helping W live the life W wants to live and is putting W's desires ahead of his own and that letting go of W and M is an act of love. This makes W feel closer to H. It confirms her feelings that we don't need to be M in order to have a love R.

Feeling so discouraged and that my efforts aren't working...That lump in my throats that doesn't go away is back. I need to go back and re read DR and re assess what I've been doing and how my tactics need to change.

Gordie, you have to believe none of what you hear and half of what you see.

You are reading *WAY* too much into her words. You simply cannot. She is in a place where her emotions are all over the map, she is confused, conflicted, angry, excited, etc, etc. She is trying to create rationalizations for how she feels. These are NOT true underlying outlooks, they are at best a weak echo of what she's going through at one moment. They are the effect, not the cause. The worst thing you could do is to steer your ship by her brain farts.

I always tell people not to follow their feelings because their feelings are a horrible compass through this period, and not to follow their thoughts because their thoughts are just rationalizations of their feelings. You can only trust your beliefs after detaching from the rest. Well, she is following her feelings and thoughts, so don't follow her.

We also generally say "Speak in actions, not in words". You want to show change, change your behavior. Don't bother talking about something, that just makes it worse. Just live the change. Well, in your sitch the opposite is true. Don't bother listening to words, watch her behavior. And, like she might be afraid your changes won't last, give her time to see what's real versus what's a mood. All we know is she seems to be responding well to the changes you've made.

All in all, don't do a sudden switch because of a few sentences from her. Who knows, she might even be testing you to see if you were acting that way just to try to 'win her back', and is seeing if you change now that she told you she's not coming back. We don't know. Furthermore, you can't use whether or not she wants to R this week as a gauge as to whether what you're doing is working, because there isn't some change you can make that will control her back to the M.

So keep moving forward smoothly, no abrupt wild flailing around trying to land a desperation punch in the last round. Smooth. Consistent. Calm. Focus on detaching from the outcome, and being how you want to be because it's the right thing for you to do, not simply to try to pull levers with WAW. I think you need to make the last few weeks positive, you can always change the nature of your relationship after she's gone, but no reason to try to leave her with a bad taste in her mouth. It's ok for her to miss you. That's not the only goal, but it can't be a bad thing that she's saying this stuff.