WW ended EA 4 mos ago; trying to restore intimacy

[hoosjim]

Sandi, Ginger, Coconut, thanks. You folks are some of the more frequent posters to my threads, and the feedback I have gotten over the last few days on this current thread, particularly the last couple of pages, has been some of the most insightful and helpful, particularly in terms of being illustrated/explained/etc. that I think I have gotten on these forums.

(Sandi):I agree that you seem to rationalize a lot of what she does.

I think I do this to an extent. And when I am truly rationalizing away things she does I think it is because I see differences or nuances that I think others might perceive, and I want to try to "work" or emphasize these. I am a very analytical person by nature, and part of my job, and my ability to do it well, has always been to analyze similarities and differences, to distinguish things that can be distinguished even on the smallest basis. In my W's case, I honestly think she is, as Sandi says, a "WW". However, while there are patterns, no two people are exactly alike, and I see differences in her-- a softening here or there, an unwillingness to turn her back on her kids, etc., that suggest to me she is not beyond hope. That does not mean, however, that I will necessarily be willing to countenance what she does or turn a blind eye. Maybe it is a way to give myself hope. Idunno. She's definitely "lost" right now in some ways, and It's really hit home the past few days that she is still not in a place that is conducive to piecing our MR back together.

Another reason, though, that I think I come across as rationalizing is that I am, again somewhat as a result of training and professional exposure (as well as just my own personal bent) a stickler for facts. I hate fuzzy renditions of the facts (one reason I pretty much stay completely clear of politics these days, lol). When I see someone cite to a fact that it is not pretty much "dead on b**ls accurate" my natural inclination is to correct it. Sometimes that means I'll disagree with the ultimate conclusion the poster reached, sometimes not. Example: Sandi2 made 2 statements above in one of her responses that on some days I would have "corrected" as not being completely accurate: one that my W said she "Wishes she'd never gotten married" and second that she still had pictures posted on FB of flowers from OM. I didn't correct either because I am really trying to be more "message" focused and I don't think that changing those two facts would at all change the very valuable insights being provided to me. (And I am trying to look deeper without knee-jerk refuting something-- for instance it's very possible that Sandi just took the necessary implication of my W's statement that she sometimes wished she had run off to join the Peace Corps to be that she wishes she'd never gotten married.) FWIW on the picture, since I brought it up, she took that down the day after we started "working" about four months back, pretty much confirming that they'd been from OM-- my recent ruminations on this merely wondered if that picture was still in her archives or had been deleted-- I don't know one way or the other. But, in either case, there's no difference to the value of the message.

IOW, I am trying to read more broadly and look for the value in all posts rather than nit-picking each fact.

(Coconut): YOU get to decide if you want to be with the person she is, she gets to decide who she is.

This is particularly well-stated, and there are some things that I am now thinking about (the kiss incident in particular, as well as continued association with bff) that make me wonder if I actually do want to continue to be with her. I think THAT is some of the emptiness and hurt I have felt since Friday night... the realization that, though I loved her once more than I can describe, and still do love her, that maybe she is no longer a person who I would want to spend the rest of my life with. And that makes me very, very sad, because she was such a good, sweet person, and still is, I think, deep down inside... but she could turn either way at this point, to dark (selfishness) or light (the person she was.) I don't know which way it's going to go, but now I may be in the weird position of stepping back, maybe even cutting the cord without her having even (AFAIK) resumed any contact with the OM.

On other things, the three of you (and others, obviously) will have different takes. As recently as a week or two ago, when things were actually looking much better, I actually still had some posters that seemed to practically be calling for me to put her out in the street or the like... which wasn't warranted.

Right now, going to see what my MC has to say. She has preached patience and deliberate restoration of touch and intimacy... but things are a little different now. I talk to her (she is also serving as IC for me) this afternoon.

Thanks again.