Neffer, thanks for taking the time to respond and for your encouragement!
KitKat, thanks for your consistency in reminders and for capturing the DB approach in your own words. I struggle to capture the dilemma I feel in words but the part that I'm questioning is how to walk the fine line between creating the right conditions for reconciliation and demonstrating that I've moved on. My husband has showed interest in talking. I've been polite and give short responses but I don't engage in conversation beyond 10 or 15 seconds. If I'm busy I send a text saying I'm busy but sometimes he wants to talk at the end of his conversation with our daughter. I think how I've talked would fit the DB approach but I *could* allow the conversations to flow and stay on the phone longer and see how it goes. I lack confidence in how to proceed. I think my husband may interpret my lack of interest to mean that I've moved on and he thinks "yeah she's already gone so there's no use." After all those calls the other week he's backed off again. But if I spend a few minutes laughing, joking, and having a nice conversation he might think "wow, she's doing great and it's nice talking with her again....maybe we can talk more..." There seems to be a window of opportunity. I hesitate to blindly follow DB when a different set of actions could elicit a different response. I hear you and others use the term "move on" quite often. Could you define "moving on" in your own words?
Jim, yes, my husband may be content with his situation now. That's how it looks. It's hard to know what lies beneath the surface. I'll check about a cheap phone for my daughter and see if that works better. Regarding the trip to Europe, I had to ask him because he needs to provide permission for our daughter to leave the country. Last time I had to take a "permission to travel" travel that he signed so I wanted to ask him early about the next trip. I guess I could wait until a week or two before our trip to tell him we're going, but at that point if he doesn't agree to sign the letter I could lose money on flights and accommodations. It seemed better to ask him early on, but I don't know if it was right. It was kind of a practicality but perhaps I should have waited. Last spring I did meet with a lawyer to calculate what my husband would need to provide financially using his salary and my unemployed status at that time. His salary has since gotten lower and my income has increased but he's been sending the same amount plus more. If we get divorced though all this will need to get re-calculated especially at the point when we sell our house. With the wedding ring I stopped wearing it last winter when my husband said he wants a divorce and took his girlfriend to Dubai. I need to better understand what it means to say you're separated, especially when there are no divorce proceedings in place and when such a status isn't recognized by either of the states where my husband and I live. Jim it's good you're pushing your divorce forward if you feel ready. Maybe I'll feel that way at someday too, but I'd like to be more comfortable with the 'separated' status for the time being.
I'm planning to speak with a psychiatrist who helped my husband in his career earlier on and who has a good reputation. I'll see what he suggests. He's from my husband's home country and he knows us both well. I'll share an update when that happens.
