Your story really resonates with me because of how fast your sitch evolved. 2 weeks ago, W and I were buying a nice house in the country and planning our wedding. Now she avoids looking at me when we are in house together. It's like she's a completely different person. How do they switch so fast?
Thornton, I was just in your thread thinking the same thing. My ex is also once divorced, and has also bounced back and forth with me one time prior to this. He came back, full of apologies about how he loved me the whole time, had taken me for granted, and never wanted to be without me again. And that sounded like music to my ears. And what I know now is it wasn't nearly enough. He fixed the symptoms, but not the root cause.
He is someone who looks externally to explain inner unhappiness. As lovely as it is to be viewed as a fix and an ability to make someone happy, it doesn't allow me to be a human with wants and needs that don't perfectly align with his. With that perspective, this was always going to happen, because he didn't address what is going on inside of him.
Prior to DB, I asked him if he noticed he was doing the same thing he did three years ago, and that the outcome would be the same this time. And, of course, that went nowhere. Just before I left, but after I'd instituted the 180, I did backtrack one time and quickly told him that I was so incredibly frustrated that I'd asked him time and time again to go address the pain he's experienced in his life in counseling, but he wouldn't do it. I said I felt like he allowed it to destroy us. Our very real happiness together was a sacrifice to the dysfunction to which he is still loyal. And then I dropped it.
I was also the villain. Part of it is needing a justification for taking the incredibly bizarre and over-reactive actions they are taking. It does hurt to know that the people he is close to have heard about me, and how unhappy he was the whole time and he just didn't recognize it. Because I know him. I know he wasn't unhappy, and it makes me look like a fool.
But ultimately those people don't matter to me. Anyone worth their salt is going to know that buying a house and wanting out less than a year later doesn't make sense.
Also, he's standing up for himself against me. He's protecting himself from someone he sees as wanting to smother him. That's his perception, but it's not reality.
Making me into the villain also means he doesn't have to feel anything for me. If he let himself remember, he'd have to question his choices, and we can't have that.
(I know I focused on my ex in this post, and there are things that I could have done better, and could do better with. I'm quietly trying to address those, or have a plan to begin addressing them, as my life settles down a bit. I'm between residences right now, so I'm allowing a little self-indulgence and will start the hard work once I'm actually settled in.)
Thornton, focus on yourself and what makes you happy. Detach and act distracted. Go watch those movies in the theater. Be away from home as much as possible, and, if you can, take a weekend away without telling her. Give her what she says she wants - a life without you, with you moving on and not showing her any inconvenient feelings for her.
But also think about whether she seems capable of the relationship that she says she wants. I know that my guy is not as he is, and that he'd have to put some hard work in addressing some things about his past. It's not going to happen in the short term, as much as I wish it would. Him wanting closeness and him being able to cope with closeness are two different things, unfortunately.
