WAW - managing limbo period

[40free]

All - thanks for your posts. It's been a week since I updated you and actually it's been one heck of a rollercoaster, as seems to be the way with all of our sitches.

So, we had the chat last week as planned. She told me she's not moving out period - it's not in the kids interests (they'll need us both) and its not in hers (once she's out, I have what I want, and will slow roll the D). I told her that I'm not having her stay in the house whilst she is carrying on her relationship with the OM. It's enough. She told me she's not seen him since 19 May. I told her she'll forgive me for not believing her as she is prone to lying, as she lied that day. She nodded, but basically was insistent she wasn't still seeing him. I don't believe her, or at least she might not be seeing him, but is for sure still in contact with him. Anyway, I felt somewhat inclined to move on from that, and accept her word for now. We talked about mediation coming up, and about telling the kids later in the week. It was definitely a clear the air discussion, and the tension in the house palpably reduced the next day.

Then we had our first mediation session last Thursday 6th July - not much happened, as it mostly about process. I told the mediator privately that I was ok to continue to live with my W but this would not hold if she started seeing the OM again as I have had enough of the disrespect. We instead agreed to focus on finances and were set homework to gather up necessary paperwork on income and needs. Next mediation is 23rd July.

All week we had planned to tell the kids about what was happening last Saturday 7th. We had worked together on a script, of who was to say what and how. My W started the drafting and came up was something really lovely and very moving. It stuck in my throat that I was complicit in saying our love for each other had changed, but was doing it for the kids sake. It seemed to me my W was on a mission to get this done, and so I spent the time preparing myself for it, and even agreed to initiate the conversation with the kids as a way of taking control of the discussion. Then Saturday came...

I went for my regular early morning run, was back by 8am. No sign of the W until closer to 10am. Given the enormity of what was about to happen, she was being quite jovial and chatty, making me think this was so what she wanted. But I thought, for the sake of the kids, I would just make 100% certain so I asked her if she was sure - if so, that's fine, but I wanted to check. To my astonishment, she crumpled into a heap.. Tears, self-pity, guilt, the lot. We had a long chat in 'our' bedroom', and it turns out, despite seemingly being on a mission since we decided D was what we were doing, she is still completely torn. I don't think its about me - just about what her selfish desires are doing to us all - the kids, our finances, their future, even the fact that to keep our house, I would need to get a big mortgage. But of course, none of this was because of me and her feelings for me. She called herself a coward, and wondered how come she couldn't just be happy with her life - she had everything, except the one thing that was missing - a spark with me. And she's sure lots of people live like that..

I listened, validated, questioned. No tears from me. No emotion. I played all this back to her, and the fact that there are two of us in this relationship, and the alternative to not telling the kids is staying and working on us, not just doing so to come back and be platonic, as that will never last. And neither of us want that. I suggested we could try with a blank sheet of paper, our previous M is dead, we get counselling together, and see how we do over the next year (we can't break up before as S17 and S15 both have serious exams next summer and we just can't distract them from this). She said what if we can't make it through a year - of course meaning she didn't think she could. I said, well we'd try, and if not, we'd have to be back to limbo again until next summer. She suggested it was her who needed to do the work on how she felt about me, and I had to point out that actually there were a fair amount of issues I had to deal with as well (British understatement) about how I felt about her (trust, hurt, deceit, lack of respect.. etc). She is clearly blinkered on all of that, and so self-centred. The A clearly being brushed off like it's not important in all of this. Such BS but very typical I'm sure. For me, it was good to see there was a human in there somewhere, and not the alien that had taken over my W's body, but still, there was nothing suggesting she wanted to stay for 'me'. Only for everything else.

Eventually we agreed (a) we would try to see our CC this week to get some guidance on how to decide, and if we were to work on us, what that might look like, and (b) we would put off telling the kids until after that session. Maybe we would still tell them later in the week if we really didn't think there was a future.

This morning (Monday), we heard back from the CC that unfortunately she is away all week an unable to see us. Plan A out of the window. The kids are around at home as they have finished school for the summer, so we have not had chance to discuss what Plan B might look like. But we'll need to asap, as we are supposed to be going on vacation next Monday, and the plan was always for me to stay behind after we'd told the kids what was happening.

My view - my W is cross with herself for not being able to pull the trigger at the weekend. She feels no differently really, just finding it hard to be the one driving this destruction. I think with no CC option, she is just going to say let's get on with it. I think that's probably best too and have no hope or expectation that this will have a different outcome. The more I think about it, the more I feel that trying to work on things when she is so far gone (and I am so emotionally scarred by what she has done to me) will just be delaying the inevitable and we'll be back in the same situation in 12 months time, or probably much sooner.

I spent some time over the weekend kind of reflecting on how those next 12 months might be, and wondered if it would be possible to turns things around for us. People do, I know. But I just couldn't see from where we were how that would be possible. She doesn't love me or desire me. I don't trust her. At all. Not a good start.

We may discuss later this evening when the kids are in bed, but I have little expectation of anything other than we decide to tell the kids later this week and going back to the mediation path we were on before. But we'll see.

What are your views on this?

Would you suggest I simply pull the trigger myself? This yes no game is torture.

Or do I be patient, let her stew in her own mess a while, and see if she comes out of the fog long enough to want to work on us?