I get what you’re saying. I do. She wants the space. Tho my IC told me to work more on the relationship.
Where I then struggle is what feels like yo-yo’ing. February? Talk of separation / divorce. October? Talk of separation taking a break. In between? Like nothing happened. Almost kinda like she’s the woman I married.
In other words....so confused. Thanks for putting up with.
Cadet is a very wise man Bo. Having his attention is a real treat for you.
Be careful with ICs. ICs are not MCs. You even have to be careful with MCs. MCs tend to be classically trained: "To win her back you have to court her again!" Yeah, that is not going to work in your sitch.
When it comes to affection the DB rule is simple:
Do not initiate. Feel free to participate if she initiates...but without attaching significance to it. If you can't do that last part then DO NOT PARTICIPATE.
M(53), W(54),D(19) M-23, T-25 Bomb Drop - Dec.23, 2017 Ring and Piecing since March 2018
I guess this is where I’m struggling right now. So...no affection at all? Not even a kiss on the cheek / arm goodnight and a verbal ‘goodnight’?
No kissing. She may actually be repulsed by the thought of kissing you right now, as much as a shock as that may be to you it happens a lot with WAS's. It's fine to wish her "goodnight", there's nothing in DB'ing that says to be cold/ rude/ indifferent.
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I struggle with this because one of her consistent early complaints (areas of anger / unhappiness) has been about sex (frequency and different practices and such). I think to myself: if she’s so unhappy and angry with me because I haven’t been giving that to her as much as she wanted in the past, would doing a 180 mean giving her more?
This question comes up a lot. You are quite right that if she complained about lack of sex, a 180 on that would obviously be more sex. But when an unhappy wife tells you things she has issues with, she wants you to change them. When a WAS tells you, to her it's "too little too late" and she's just explaining/ justifying why she wants to end the M. So you can do 180's on your personal behavior but not on anything that has to do with her because she doesn't want that right now.
“No kissing. She may actually be repulsed by the thought of kissing you right now, as much as a shock as that may be to you it happens a lot with WAS's. It's fine to wish her "goodnight", there's nothing in DB'ing that says to be cold/ rude/ indifferent.”
I do see that—I would kiss her on the cheek / arm and say ‘goodnight,’ but I wouldn’t get a kiss back. Might be what you are describing.
Thank you for your guidance. I guess I need to be reminded of this (like I said, something I struggle with).
It’s like I tell my students—doing nothing is still doing SOMETHING.
I do understand that pursuing her will most likely fail, so I won’t. But I feel like I’m living with her as brother-and-sister (or two roommates).
While I know it’s not easy, it still [censored], and it’s hard to not fall into an emotional trap of ‘well was I a bad husband’ or regret for times when I wasn’t as affectionate or sexual with her as she would have liked and that led her to this point. I may as well fall into that trap here in the forums and get out of it so I’m not there at home.
