He did not mention OW or his new place or his family discussion. I had decided not to bring it up for a number of reasons, but was prepared to discuss it non-emotionally if he did.
He called me re: questions I'd had-- midday at work, at a very bad time and a fairly unusual time for him.
I snapped at him and told him I could not talk. (yes, I know. And this is SUCH a rare thing for me, a practical 180.).
He said he knew that (why call me when he knows I can't talk is the obvious Q--but I didn't ask). I felt I was unfair -- and I don't want to be the abrupt person -- and so I emailed him to let him know when he could reach me and to apologize for being abrupt. I did say here that he'd called at the worst possible moment in my office, but that to be honest part of my reaction was also not feeling good about how he was handling us right now. (this is the kind of honesty we had been asking of each other before the papers, so I kept that up)
He called me back at home at the time we discussed. I reinterated the apology and he said he completely understood.
We went over the issues at hand and he was agreeable. Apologized about the delay in handling these items and basically agreed to take care of each item as discussed.
One of the issues was a letter I'd received from his lawyer. I told him (again) that he could propose a settlement that I would take to a lawyer or we could work on it together but that I would not be calling his lawyer. It doesn't make sense to ring up legal bills to discuss things he and I have already talked about. He agreed and said yes, this made good sense. I told him I trusted him to stick to the things we'd discussed, so there was no big deal here.
Though he keeps offering to do more and more, he has not actually done any work on my web site in many weeks. I pleasantly told him not to worry about it, that a friend (did not elaborate) has offered to help with it and I'll be taking him up on that.
Then I was ready to go. But he asked about my work, asked lots of interested follow-up questions about my new boss, workload, etc. This is not typical. I answered them all, said things are stressful but for understandable reasons, overall it's good, etc.
I asked briefly about his work, which he said he likes (he was not enthusiastic, but he's had lots of complaints up to now), but is still having trouble with getting paid regularly. (It's contract work.)
I'm not reading anything into any of this, by any means.
But he was very friendly and agreeable, and the type of questions he asked about work had a lot more depth than he's had in ages--much more like old H questions.
If this is how we interact, does it make sense to give him some of what he wants (friendship, based on what I am willing to do) or shut him down completely until he cleans up his act?
Any thoughts on this? I know where I am leaning (won't tell you so as to skew your thinking), but I'd really be interested to gather some new perspective.
And this is SUCH a rare thing for me, a practical 180.).
