Ovrrnbw, thanks. Yeah I don't feel prepared to make any ultimatums or enforce anything in the near future but I hope to open the door to some sort of communication with my husband about the best way forward sometime in the coming year. I have no idea yet what I'd say or how to say it. Perhaps he'll beat me to it although he seems to be gliding along just fine with our current arrangement.
I don't want to give up but if my husband still shows no interest going into the fourth year, and he continues to be so unstable job-wise and jumping from woman-to-woman, then this passive "give them space, no relationship talk..." DB approach after an extended period of time almost feels like it's enabling their behavior.
I've tried to really change how I interact with my husband a lot since April. I don't call him at all, don't ask any non-essential questions, don't show any special interest in what he's up to....I haven't stopped answering his calls because one of his big frustrations and complaints before he left was that I didn't I answer my phone. It only happened from time-to-time but whenever it happened he'd get mad saying "what if something happened and I really needed to reach you?" Fair enough, so I've been answering, or at least texting "will call back" when I can't answer, but I usually pass the phone straight to my daughter.
There's no hard proof my husband is running around with other women - there's only evidence that points in that direction. He might very well be alone at a course right now but there's just no way to know. Maybe he went to the beach with a guy he met at the gym. Maybe in his mind he's planning to come back at some point and he's busy trying to get a new job but the more likely scenario is that he's enjoying his freedom and taking full advantage of the opportunity to date whoever he meets as he goes along or maybe he's happily in a long-term relationship with the 26 year old again. Whatever the case, he's back off on the reconciliation path although he's still acting nice overall.
