Trying to do the right thing...

[OC_Hope]

Yesterday W had her breast cancer surgery - the tumor was removed and the biopsy from her lymph nodes came up negative, so she's in the clear. Thank God

My FIL checked up on me last night to see how the kids and I were doing. He hasn't seen them for a long time. I gave him the scoop and told him that I had stopped talking to his daughter. He encouraged me to keep doing that, to work on myself and become whole in heart.

Then he explained how much better his new marriage has become for him, and while he regretted jumping into it too soon after his divorce from W's mother, he's discovered a love that he never knew before. [her mom had an MLC about twenty years ago, but stayed pretty much in perpetual teenager mode ever since]

I was a bit confused as he's always been positive about reconciliation for our marriage, so I asked him if he was encouraging me to give up on his daughter. He said yes. That as far as he could tell, his daughter has chosen to go down the same path her mother did all those years ago.

That's taken me for a bit of a loop honestly.

So I'm a bit confused what to do now - I still love her and want to remain committed to believing we can get through this MLC and be happy on the other side.

The timing of me choosing to essentially go dark on my W three weeks ago is probably not great. You see, after many months of her confessing her love for us and saying all the right things about reconciling and getting help, nothing really changed. Her actions did not match her words and I was getting considerably frustrated to the point of calling her out on several occasions, and more than likely frightened her off a bit. It's just that I had just had enough of the runaround and was emotionally spinning.

So then yesterday comes... She started giving me text updates about the status of her surgery. I was friendly and made some jokes, got her to laugh. This has been the first we've interacted with each other about anything then that kids-related stuff since I went dark

She's going to be recovering for a few days and I want to be compassionate about her situation. Like, should I encourage her, or check in to see how she's doing? Do I leave it to her to reach out for whatever?

Add to all of this, as part of the 180, I've been considering blocking her on FB and Instagram, however, this is a delicate situation in her current condition and she may see such an action as an outright rejection of her in this critical time of recovery.

I haven't had great will power about snooping on her new FB friends, etc (I know, I know), so what are my alternatives?

My gut says I should just go dark on all social, delete the apps off my phone and leave it to her to wonder why I'm not posting anything. This would be really weird for me to do as I'm a bit of a documentarian of all our children's activities and all. It would leave her puzzled I'm sure, but if I commit to this, then I know it's going to be tempting to take a peek once in a while.

If I can stay strong for a couple weeks, the plan would be to send her a handwritten letter letting her know I'll be removing her from my social accounts. The letter would likely follow a similar pattern that was laid out by a former MLC'r I read on the boards here:

So, my suggestion would be to stop chasing and checking and reassuring him that the anchor is still holding solid. Quit making the movie more dramatic and exciting. Tell him:

That you want to work on the marriage, that you can forgive him and take him back but starting today your life is about you and not about his movie. You can't be sure where this decision will lead you but you need more than hopes and dreams that things will be the way they were. You are very sad and you feel very sorry for him and hope that he will be OK but you have had enough and you can't let this situation ruin two lives. If he comes to his senses and wants to be with you then you hope that happens before your life takes a new direction and the door closes. You are not going to live in the past and you are prepared to move on without him.

Then live your life as if he may not come back. Believe it, don't play it: he may not come back. If he doesn't then how will that be any worse than what you are living now? On the other hand, if he feels the danger like I did, he may be smacked back into reality. Depending on when that happens and where you are with your life you can make a decision at that time as to what you want to do.

I dunno if this is the best way to handle this, or just remain silent and skip any kind of letter writing...

Anyway... I know I've rambled a bit but any advice would be welcomed at this point.