Just checking back in, with some journaling. Might be a long one.
I'm going to be brutally honest with myself, and with you. This has been an awful week. Normally I'm fairly good at regulating my emotions and keeping it moving, but this week has been extremely difficult for me, triggered by two things:
First, WAW's continued lack of interest in MC. Yet again this week our counselor presented some alternative times for us to attend - for background, WAW's new job makes it difficult for her to attend during the day - and again, that new time didn't work for her. Now, I have no idea if she really had a conflict that she couldn't get around, but at this point it's impossible to believe that MC is a priority for her, at all. For context, I'm a C-level exec with a 70-person org, and I'm willing to move mountains to maintain MC as a lifeline; it's very clearly more important to me than it is to her. And that hurts.
Second, general unhappiness at work. Not necessary to go into details, but while I have an amazing role that many would be thrilled with, I'm just not - mostly because we've grown so much and the company culturally is so different than what I enjoy. I'm an entrepreneur, I like companies in their earlier stage...and this is just abjectly the opposite of that.
It's impossible to determine where my emotions regarding work and home separate; for example, I fought so hard for my job (and was happy to slog through it, despite some reservations and signs it was turning into something I didn't want) because I wanted to provide the best life for my family, and support WAW in her art. Now that we're S and she's got a full-time job, I find it harder and harder to justify doing something I don't enjoy - even though from a mercenary perspective, I'd be an idiot for leaving.
Communication with WAW has been basically zero, saved for a few logistical-based emails and texts here and there. At this point, this limbo is getting to be more painful than the actual separation was - there's just no shape to it, no signs of life at all, and I have no clue what to do next. I'm GALing and trying my best to maintain distance but I'm lonelier than ever and this all just feels extremely untenable.
I ask myself: what am I holding out for? At what point am I a blind fool, ignoring the obvious signs that WAW has no interest in reconciliation, and is just gradually winding things down? We've been S almost four months; it's past the time of "needing space", it's into "building a new life and seeing if that new life is better" territory, right?
I feel like I know the answer to those questions - they're obvious in her actions. And I feel like such a weak, passive fool for trying to fight, trying to find any positive ray of light that I see.
In my IC today, my therapist had mentioned that he maintains a lot of confusion about why the S happened - in his words, it just feels like one day my WAW woke up and decided she didn't want to be married anymore. It's true that there's a lot of things I'd have done differently, and certainly I've used the time we've been separated to read and learn and prepare a better version of myself for whatever future comes my way. But apart from a few general things, there's nothing I can really say to WAW; it's not as if I can say "Hey, I'm still me, I'm not drinking any more though" or anything like that. Something changed in her, and that's not something I can address or solve. It puts me in such a powerless position. Something has to suddenly become clear in her mind that she wants to try again with me, but nothing in her actions points to that being anywhere close to reality. And I have to be honest about that, no matter how much it hurts.
One thing my IC is really keen on - and probably to some disagreement on here - is that if there is to be any reconciliation, WAW is going to have to fall in love with me again, not for the best-version-of-myself person I've become during the S but the person I am, day-in and day-out. The person I am has agency and takes the bull by the horns; I've started companies, I've attacked goals, I've been relentless in going after the things that I want - my entire life has been a story of persistence and action. When I met WAW, I surprised her (in a good way, obviously) with how direct I was about my interest in her and the control I had on my life, which was so different than what she was seeing from other guys at the time. The person she fell in love with is active, not passive.
And so in that vein, the IC's advice is to go about things the same way I have throughout my life - make it clear to WAW that she's still important to me, that I'm willing to work on things, that I remain loyal and faithful to the vows I made. Not to just sit there, waiting for my life to just happen but taking action and ownership of the situation. He's not convinced that WAW knows just how much I'm hurting; he has some concerns that from her perspective, I might too be settling into a new normal that doesn't involve her. What he says makes logical sense, but it's incredibly scary. One, it's almost the direct opposite of advice on here, and two, it applies pressure to a situation in which I have almost no positive signs at all or leverage to work with.
And so I'm just confused, hurt, and more pessimistic than I've ever been. And pile onto that my unhappiness at work and I'm just having a rough, rough week. But I'm also at a complete loss for what to do next and becoming emotionally unable to continue in this limbo.
My birthday is next week - I'm fully prepared for her to do absolutely nothing. Even though I know, as I write that, that it would hurt me if that was the case because I'm looking a sign, any sign that she's still there, that I'm on her radar at all. I wish I could sit here and write this post from a place of strength and say I'm detached and it's my life and all of that, but I can't. It's four months in and I feel just as bad as I did in the very first day after BD.
