Yeah, the validation is a tricky beast. I wanted her to know to know that I got the frustration part and I was experience it too. Previously, I would have acted as though I didn't think anything was wrong and that I was never on the same page as her. I wanted it to be a 180, but this messed up the validation part .
Obviously my anxiety right now stems from expectations and feeling like if she says she wants to work on the M, then there should be outwards signs of that. I appreciate you keeping me grounded on lowering my expectations, the fact that we are both on our own time frames, and I understand that she is "tired of being the one trying to connect, do things together, initiating ILYs." I am having a clear internal battle with the fact that she feels like I need to be the one initiating things, making her feel loved, etc...which is almost opposite of DBing. She also doesn't seem terribly receptive to it right now, despite saying this is what I haven'y been doing and that she's tired of initiating to no response. I think I'll stick to DBing as we seem to be taking baby steps forward, which is WAY better than stalling or going backwards.
Interestingly, we we had the R talk 2 days ago, she said, "I think you are finally feeling the way I've felt for the last 20 years." It's as if subconsciously, she wants me to wallow in this for a while...which I probably do in fact need to.
Thanks again guys and gals
Me: 44 Her: 42 T: 22, M: 20 D:18, S:16, S:11 Sep: 6 months in 2002 Sep again: March 15, 2015 (5 months) WAW talk again: January 21, 2019
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