Persistent Endurance (Part 3)

[curtis7]

I need to strap on a helmet and some body armor to prepare for the 2x4’s (hopefully not a sledge hammer) coming my way.

I’ve had the kids with me since Monday and W hadn’t seen them at all as I had activities with them everyday after school. I think 3 days is the longest she has ever gone without seeing them. Yesterday afternoon she texted that she was riding her horse tonight and hoped to see the kids after they get home from baseball practice.

We arrived home and the kids spent a little time with her in the barn. She later came into the laundry room to say goodbye to them. She told the kids she stunk from riding the horse. D4 asked why don’t you take a shower here? W replied, I don’t have any clothes here anymore (I guess I gave her an easy excuse by packing up all of her stuff several weeks ago). W then asked if she could buy a bottle of wine from me. She said she was too dirty to go into a store. I picked one out and gave it to her and said you don’t need to pay me. She also mentioned talking to one of our neighbors while on her horse ride. The neighbor let her know about the birthday party I’m having at my place on Saturday. I think this made her curious (GAL works). She then talked for several minutes about how busy she was at work in her new managerial role. I empathized with her as I experienced similar issues in the past when first managing people. I was engaging, made eye contact, mirrored her body expressions and really listened to her.

We went into the garage and she asked if I had any extra electrical wire because she wanted to run a new outlet to an over the range microwave in her separation house. I found a bundle of wire in a storage cabinet that might work for her. We then talked in the garage about our neighbor wanting to bring his son’s horse to our property for the summer while he is overseas. W and I discussed building more fencing off the third stall in our barn that has only been used for storage up until now. She talked about her long term plans for the barn fencing, then said it was my decision. I said it’s not entirely my decision. We went out to the driveway under the moonlight and I handed the electrical wire to her and then I placed my arms around her for a hug, she didn’t wrap her arms around me and looked somewhat uneasy and uncomfortable.

Here was the exchange:
W: What are you doing?
H: Can I have a hug?
W: Sure...did you have a good birthday?
H: It was different and it was hard...but I enjoyed the time with the kids (I placed my hand in her hair behind her head and gently pulled her towards me)
H: What are you thinking? (after a few seconds and moving apart slightly with my arms still wrapped around her lower back)
W: We’re not there yet.
H: I understand, we miss you (while looking her in the eyes).
W: Who’s we?
H: Me and the kids.
W: They get to see me.
H: You’re right they do. It’s late, you better go (still holding her in my arms and pulling her into me, she was not falling into me, I could tell it was not the time to press further, so I let her go)
W: Ok, good night
H: Bye (I turned and walked back into the house)

As I initially held her, thoughts of the vets on the board and their reactions to this decision instantly consumed me. Then I thought to myself, oh shucks, well it’s too late now. I need to go with it and try not to say anything that makes matters much worse. Thoughts of how to exit the situation with dignity rapidly ran through my head. I must say it was uncomfortable for me as well since I have had so little physical contact with her for so many months. The thought of moving in to kiss her crossed my mind a couple times; however, looking into her eyes and knowing her facial expressions, I could tell that would not be well received, at least I resisted that temptation.

Huge forehead slap on my part, I don’t know why I couldn’t fight the urge to touch her and try to get some affection. I just feeling confident, compelled, and an incessant urge to find out if she had any warmth towards me. I think I was motivated by reading P_Jam’s sitch and that he recently had sex with his WW. I felt my sitch had some parallels to his and wanted to find out if I could have similar success. Also, I didn’t get what I wanted from her for my birthday, so I decided what the heck, I’m just going to go get what I want no matter the outcome.

I don’t know if it helped or hurt my sitch or set me back, but last night I didn’t really care because I enjoyed it. My MR may already be over, but that doesn’t mean I still can’t get some personal satisfaction when the opportunity presents. I missed what it felt like to hold her in my arms for the past 6 months. No matter how cruel her words and actions have been, the fact remains that I love this woman and she’s still the only companion I want to be with. DBing is about continuing to do what works and stop doing what doesn’t work. I wanted to find out if this action worked. The immediate reaction is no, so I’ll back off again and we’ll see how things progress from here.

Positives:
- I got to hold her in my arms which felt great
- She didn’t push me away or scream “don’t you dare touch me”
- She said “We’re not there yet”, keying on the yet as if someday we could be there
- I think it helped letting her know the path home is paved and smooth

Negatives:
- She didn’t reciprocate the hug or seem to appreciate it
- Again firmly established myself as plan B, C, or D
- She said “We’re not there yet”, contrarian POV is that she just said that to not escalate the tension in the moment and wanted it to ended quickly and gracefully

I did call her shortly after she left because S8 had a nasty heat rash. She told me how to treat it. Later on we also exchanged some pleasant and joking texts about the kids.

I woke up this morning feeling good with a ton of motivation and energy. I dropped off the kids for their last day of school. Going to be really busy the next couple days getting everything ready and hosting my birthday party.

Let the 2x4’s commence.