Journaling right now and need to get some thoughts out there...
It's been a few weeks since W flipped back to being standoffish, and that process has escalated a bit since then. She's still spending long and stressful hours at work, usually comes home for a few hours in the evening where she busies herself with reading or things like doing the laundry, sometimes engages with the kids a bit, and then either goes into the spare room to sleep or several times in the past week has gone to spend the night at a friend's house (unclear if she's actually spending it at her house or if she's going somewhere else). When she leaves, she does it when I'm putting the kids to bed and either doesn't say anything or just texts me that she's leaving. My response to her infrequent texts about anything is generally just "ok."
She's clearly going through a difficult time - work has been incredibly stressful for her in addition to the things that are happening in our M. I've really wanted to engage with and be supportive to her on her work issues, but I've held back. A few times I have asked her about it, and she's generally been short with her answers so I've just dropped it. I know that's not an effective DB strategy, but it's tough for me to watch someone I still care about going through a hard time. I've been engaging less and less on that front. I really think that she needs individual counseling - she seems pretty miserable, at least around me and the kids, right now, but it's not something I'm really in a position to tell her right now as I don't think she can really hear any messages like that from me at the moment. It seems to me that she is linking all of her issues of being unhappy to me and our M right now, even though I don't think that's the source of it. There are certainly things that could be better, and I am really reflecting on being the best person that I can be, but in her own words when the BD happened, things in our M were "fine" and she wants something that's going to be happy and wonderful. In that conversation we both said that what I do isn't going to make her happy and that she needs to find that happiness for herself, while all I could do is contribute to that happiness. We haven't talked at all about the R since then.
In the meantime, I've been enjoying all the time with my kids. It's tough to be the almost sole caregiver during this time, but I've appreciated the opportunities to be with them. It hasn't given me a ton of time to do other things other than work, but I've been able to engage with friends here and there when I can. I'd say 80% of the time I'm doing really well, and sometimes the gravity of the current situation hits me and I feel distraught for a bit, and then I've been able to pretty effectively move back into a positive space. At this point when she's here the house feels tense and when she's not the house feels more peaceful. Most of the day she's not here and that has helped me to feel that sense of peace and to be able to have time to reflect on myself. So while it feels lonely to go to bed myself every night, I've been appreciative of the time that it's given me to read, or just watch TV and relax.
I'm still giving her space, and I've started to question myself on if there is a PA happening. While I've seen evidence of deception on her part, I haven't confirmed the actual PA and am now questioning if I should confront it or just wait it out more. I don't want to wait forever - I can't - but I also don't want to stir things up where there might not be anything there. For now, I'm doing more reflecting, focusing on my detaching and GAL strategies, and taking each day with a positive mindset and working toward knowing that whatever happens I'm going to be fine.
