I am giving her space and I have backed off I wasn't sure if I should go totally cold or not at this stage. Earlier in the thread there was talk about finding the right balance so when she comes to kiss me I kiss back. When she says ILY before going to sleep I say it back. I am working to stop the over analysing everything she does as it drive me mad as I try to figure out what does it or what doesn't it mean and I am just trying to focus on the day to day for now.
What threw me for a loop was all the initial positivity and affection and the "this will be a better marriage" back to not being sure what she wants. Whatever the reasons for the back sliding I am sure it will reveal itself or get better with some time.
First, there is nothing in loving detachment about being "cold". Never be cold. Go study the detachment thread, lots of LBSs get that wrong.
If you read my story you will see that I confronted my W on 12/23/2017 about some Facebook messenger messages between her and a guy that I found. She immediately said she didn't want to be married anymore. Obviously the next day was Christmas Eve followed by Christmas. She was more affectionate and loving to me those two days that at anytime in the prior 5 years. This resulted in me starting R talks at various points throughout those two days and every time the answer was the same: she still didn't want to be married anymore.
At some point in my sitch, it came out that she was loving and affectionate in those couple of days following BD because she knew that I was hurting. In retrospect it was her way of easing her own guilt over what she was doing to me. It meant nothing.
That is why trying to garner meaning out of the activities of a WAS and/or WS is a futile endeavor. They are running on pure emotion. One minute they might actually be questioning their decision. But then 5 minutes later they are as resolved as ever to end the marriage. My W later told me that she had no idea what she wanted from minute to minute, it depended on her mood and feeling at that exact moment. SO WMWB, if she had no idea what her feelings and actions meant, how in the world could I?!?
This is why you need to be. Luckily for me on 12/26/2017 (Boxing Day for our Canadian friends!) I remembered from our previous sitch 12 years earlier DB and MWD! I immersed myself into DBing and reading and listening to MWD (and other anti-D experts I might add), and started to pull back. Remove all pressure and pursuit. GAL (reconnected with an old friend and he and I were taking weekly trips to the gun range among other activities (outdoor shows/stores, etc). I started to 180 on my bad behaviors and improve as a person. I didn't flaunt these changes, I just started to really change for me, and in the process she began to take note and overtime to trust the changes. And most of all I detached. I cannot tell you what an change in our dynamic me detaching was. I remember when she came to me to ask me for help in resume writing, interviewing and if she could buy books on the subject. I completed supported her even though that was her enabler for leaving. The profound impact that my embracing her leaving, and even supporting it, had on her cannot be overstated. The next night, as she was trying to finish her resume, she came to me in tears about what she was doing "God hates divorce." I continued to remain completely emotionally neutral and told her things like "You have to do what you need to in order to be happy." Etc. (I was still working on listening and validating, something I became much better at later.)
My point is WMWB is that when you completely let go, drop the rope, open the cage door (whatever analogy you want to use here!) and let her go.....sometimes she'll want to come right back. I recently heard a story of a man that had a pet raccoon. He rescued it as a baby, and had it in a cage. It never domesticated and was mean even though he raised it and fed it. It was in an outdoor pen and would run and up down the side of the pen constantly. One day he decided to let it go. He opened the cage door. The raccoon continued to run up and down the side of the cage including direction of the completely open door. But it would turn around and go the other way every time. Finally, the man banged on the outside of the cage, and raccoon finally bolted towards the door, into the woods to freedom. Your WAW is like that pet raccoon. You open the door. SHE will decide whether to run off into the woods or not.
M(53), W(54),D(19) M-23, T-25 Bomb Drop - Dec.23, 2017 Ring and Piecing since March 2018
