Thanks for responding. I have been really good at not looking for any evidence they are still together. This weekend however I decided to see if she still has him on the public part of her FB and she does. That actually made me enormously relieved for S's sake. My fear was that maybe they broke up and he was spinning and coming here between women. I've always felt that if it was real, he would have to be the one to leave the "relationship".
This has felt more than him just cycling between women. While some of the things he did took a while to come to my attention, it was clear that he was trying in his own disordered way to have contact with me since August/September. I found it interesting that our phone call was in November, pretty much a month later he was able to come and face me, and a month after that he pushed again for dismissal, gave me the money, and I think was somewhat flirting with me. I have no doubt that the clothes and beard were for my benefit and the fact that it was only two weeks after the prior talk was perhaps evidence of him getting more comfortable.
I know that you can only ever know what this is by looking backward. But it has been longer than in the past, seems more substantial, and seems to be building. I've seen many threads here and elsewhere, and I think HB mentions in her articles, that if this is the first awakening, that it could take months for her to be gone and months more for him to try something more obvious.
Because I don't think he knows what he wants from one minute to the next, I certainly can't put any stock in this. I can't have any hopes or expectations of any particular outcome.
I am going to focus on my hope for friendlier relations for the kids' benefit, although I have no interest in being his friend, and the "nice" divorce I want if I see it swinging that way.
I did like seeing the twinkle back in his eye. I did like that he didn't treat me like I had ebola virus, and I did like that he showed up as we agreed for son. Son had a good time with him. OD seemed to survive being in the house with him. His text response to me the following day seemed like he wasn't hiding in fear from all that intimacy.
I remembered later, not sure if i wrote this at the time, that when he came in December, he blurted out, "I'm going to want more communication going forward." In that moment I thought he was talking about the two of us because of its placement in the conversation, and it seems he was. He also said when we met in his town that he would want to see S more than a few hours every other week. This could have been him saying he wants to spend more time here, who knows. Right now I don't expect that S or I will see or hear from him for another 10 days or so.
This scared little kitten has a lot to figure out. I am a cat person. I know to deal with cats. Whether I want to take in this stray is definitely something I'm not prepared to answer. I don't know enough about him yet and what kind of bad habits he would bring with him.
