Be very careful thinking those tears are remorse for what she has done/been doing.
Be careful nudging for counseling.
You need to be the lighthouse.
The best thing you can do is to keep DBing. Focus on you. GAL, 180s and work on detachment. (Google: self-differentiation in marriage as to what this looks like).
(NOTE I trimmed the quote for brevity)
Thanks again Steve. I told her when she was crying, I remember when I was the one who was walking away from OW. I told her I knew why she was crying. I even let her cry on my shoulder. No long speech. No moral high ground. I've been the one in her shoes. I also remember not loving her at first when I came back. I told myself it was for the kids, and this and that. I was waiting for the other shoe to drop and had a mentality of making sure "I got mine". I don't know if all of that is coming. One thing this community reminded me of though, was for my personal experience, it wasn't necessarily a fast process. It wasn't really until we had a change of environment that I was able to embrace my decision and her.
This is a fairly different situation from when I was WAS. She's realizing that retirement is either 11 months out or 3 years out. Either way, if she has no pension and an alimony payment, that won't be possible. If she doesn't have additional support, she'll be scraping by. If she has all of that going on, she'll have to work whatever job she can and live wherever. I know these things are weighing in her mind. She's made a lot of telling comments.
On the decision making cat and monkey analogies.. I have a history training animals from all the way back to my teenage years. When I started reading these boards in Nov, I realized there were a lot of similarities. Be firm in your expectations, but offer a welcoming reaction to corrective behavior. Ultimately, she's a human being. Fear and uncertainty from the actions I would take cannot be the glue that binds us. What I am comfortable with it being, is the catalyst that forces her to re-evaluate things. Granted, her decision will still bear consequences, as every decision each of us makes.. Based on a lot of her actions and behaviors, I think she's made her decision. I also think she's trying to make peace with that for herself, which I don't believe will be a fast process. I believe that she has thrown herself into a mixture of grief and denial over OM and that needs to resolve itself before any marital healing can begin.
As you say, my job here is to be a fixed point. As to when I nudge towards counseling, I'm going to wait for signs that she's accepted her decision. We're not there, but that's what I'm looking for.
