WW ended EA 4 mos ago; trying to restore intimacy

[hoosjim]

The reason I said she never wanted to marry, was deducted from the quote above. I did not mean it was a direct quote from her.

Yeah, I sort of deduced that (as I also posted in that post). My point was that the more revisionist/defensive/excuse-making me might have just "corrected" your statement without looking deeper to that implication.

She's actually said that to me before, or something similar, as far back as we were dating at first. She'd say-- "I don't know what I want to be... sometimes I think I'd just like to drop everything and go join the peace corps or hitchhike across the country or something" At that point I was dating her, head over heels and didn't want to lose her so I'd usually deflect to something else "you're doing so well in PT school" or "wouldn't you miss everyone around here" or the like, or just say nothing. Never really thought she was TOO serious about it.

She also has an image of herself, and even did pretty far back... again when we were dating, of being someone who never followed through with anything, particularly if it meant taking chances. She was recruited to play college basketball, then suffered a minor injury and illness her first year that were unrelated to the sport and never went back to it... though she says she easily could have. She never continued with trying to finish her Physical Therapist training/education (what she was doing when we met), either, and there are other things she cites... such as the wanting to go overseas and do mission or charity work.

Funny thing, I was worried about losing her back then but I probably could have gone with her had I been willing to drop everything in my own life (I was fresh out of grad school at the time), but that thought never even occurred to me for some reason... I just assumed she wanted to go off by herself-- which was a definite a possibility because at the time she was torn over our newly-formed relationship, a long-term relationship she was just getting out of, and the prospect of two or three other guys who were trying to ask her out. As she put it, she just wanted to be friendly and "hang out" (As she put it-- and we still joke about whether we were "dating" or "hanging out") but everyone wanted to get serious and be in love and she didn't know if she was ready for that. (Back then, she was probably what a lot of guys would call a "tease", even though that's not what she was about.) At any rate, in one of our MC sessions a few weeks back that came up again in the context of her wanderlust and the things she never did that she missed out on, and she said "well in all the times I said those things when we were dating [like wanting to go off and join the peace corps], how come you never said you'd come with me?"

Now of course, she is clearly saying "I don't see myself doing those things with you", so not much wiggle room for interpretation there... but it's interesting that she might have been open to me joining her way back then and it honestly never even occurred to me.