Well it's been a minute since I've posted. A lot has changed. My WW has been in her new house for a month now; my new furniture that I ordered still hasn't arrived yet, so my living/dining room are still empty since the beginning of January (though I put a tent up for the weeks I have my kids, lots of fun). I've been reading still, though not as much as before - I really need to buckle down in this area as I have a dozen or so books that I got myself for XMas. I've been listening to a ton of podcasts and trying to implement change in my life.
My efforts to GAL are going decently - went to a poker night with a buddy and his crew. They're a loud, rowdy bunch which is a nice change of pace from my typically quiet nerdy friends. I've been hanging out with the nerdy crew a lot (lives right across the street, so easy to get together) - nice to just go have some lighthearted fun. We went snowboarding which I haven't done in over 15 years; lots of crashes, but lots of fun. I've been working out a bit, though I strained something in my upper back so I'm having to work around that. Down to 189lbs from 218lbs when my wife hit me with the BD; I'm starting to see my abs again! I've been focusing on cooking really good food recently, though my kitchen is pretty barren compared to what it was before (appliance-wise). Also hung out with friends for the lunar eclipse, we had a fire pit, high-powered binoculars, and a telescope so it was pretty neat (but cold AF).
My WW has been asking me for favors since this whole thing started, and I've been obliging until earlier this week. She asked me to check on a prescription for her, which I've done many times, even once after BD. This time however, I told her that I felt like that wasn't appropriate given the current circumstances. I asked that we do not ask personal favors from one another outside of childcare/things left at the house. She blew up, asked if we were still friends, threatened to cut me out of her life (this confused me) - I told her that at the moment I was undecided on remaining her friend. She wanted an explanation, to which I responded that being friends in the future may be possible, but at the moment it was too much of an emotional burden for me. She was not satisfied with that answer so she called me. I foolishly answered, but kept my cool and reiterated my stance. The big mistake happened the next day. I keep a couple journals, one for gratitude, another for writing and processing my emotions. In the latter, I had wrote about my feelings towards maintaining a friendship - in a moment of weakness, I decided to email this with my W so that she could understand my feelings on the situation. Huge mistake - I had written about how she betrayed my trust, our MR, and I talked about her affair with OM. When she read it the next day, she blew up again. She doesn't see her and OM as an affair as it started after BD (so she claims), we are separated (not legally, but physically), and in her mind we would already be divorced if not for some other legal stuff holding us up from filing (not true, but we would be a lot closer to finalizing the D). She got extremely defensive and called off plans to see S3 that night because she didn't want to see me and claims we are not friends. She cuts people out of her life quickly when they challenge her morals, values, and actions so I guess I can add myself to that growing list. We'll see how it shakes out.
Anyway, I really messed that one up. I'm emotional over it, I tend to get really bad anxiety when situations get too emotionally charged especially with my W - one of my action items is to practice greater emotional courage. Like I said before, she is the one person I've ever really been truly vulnerable with (and her with me). It's certainly not the end of the world, but the whole situation hurts still (the D, the A, the split parenting, and this most recent battle). I keep my ring on for whatever reason. It used to be as a show that reconciliation was still my goal, but at this point keeping it on is a burden that I endure purely because of my convictions.
