New M, new WAW

[mako]

At this point Mako, I'd look up talk charges and touch charges. Lots of positive signs here. I think you can subtly institute talk and touch charges to slowly start to rebuild a connection.

Never heard of these, thanks Steve! They look like a good little thing to add. Those little things add up.

IMO This needs to be the other way around where the majority of (affection) is initiated by her. This is all about attraction and if she feels it she will initiate.

In a vacuum I agree and would say the same if commenting to someone else. Due to our history I feel like this is something that she is going to want to see what I'm capable of. She was the primary initiator of anything for a long time and got fed up with it being that way, and that mostly continued even after she told me she didn't want it to be that way. So she's not going to want to jump back into the same thing where it's like that again. I think that's fair, to some extent. But I do agree that I will need some evidence of attraction to me as well to see that we are going in the right direction.

If you engage in a relationship with her again it should only be under the conditions that:

1) She sees you as someone of extremely high value
2) She views a relationship with you as something much better than a life with someone else or a life alone
3) She's willing to work to win you

Without those three things, she's going to walk again down the line, because she really doesn't have the motivation to work with you to change anything, your relationship will keep seeking the same equilibrium it has had because of how your personalities and issues come together.

I definitely agree with this. I think the answer to 1 is a little complicated but yes she does. 2 I don't know...she was trying to date a little and has talked about it, my impression is that the grass was not actually greener out there, but as to better alone I have no idea. She was alone for a while before we got together so she does have some idea of what that's like, I.e. she's not one of those people that is only ever dating someone. As to 3, yes that needs to happen, I think in a healthy R both sides always need to be working to win the other. On the plus side, she is purposely spending time with me, and invited me out to lunch later in the week, which isn't typical. She knows quality time is an important LL to me. She is treating me differently than she had been for a while...it's hard to put my finger on how that is exactly, but I feel more love and kindness coming from her, the walls she had put up for a long time are maybe not all the way down but they are much improved. It just feels more like it did ~5 years ago when things were better. Could be in my head, I don't know.

So my question is do you believe she is working to win you? Do you think you are taking her back to easy? What are your boundaries moving forward? Will she get IC? Will you do MC? Will you be open with your phones?

These are hard questions, but important questions. Right now I am not sure. Working to win me is talked about above some, and I do think so at least a little bit. We have sorta discussed MC and I think that's something we should do. She had been planning to do IC for at least a month now but hasn't yet, if that continues that's a big red flag for sure. I am cognizant that I don't want to let her back too easily, we got here for a number of reasons and it wasn't just me. If I work on myself and she doesn't that's not really going to fly, I had kind of been coming to terms with acceptance of my whole sitch and I know that I was unhappy. I do think I would rather get a D than go back to where we were in 2019-20, we're both going to need to put in the effort if we're going to make this better.

I ask these questions because I went through a false recon that sounds a lot like your situation in which my Exw's EA went south on her. These things do not typically turn around over night.

I agree with you that this seems strange that it has changed overnight. Two months from BD, that isn't really enough time for the process to take its course. It seems like it usually takes a long time to get to the point where they want to walk, and a long time to come back from that. That’s why I still have a lot of caution...like you said, I think she thinks she's back now, but I'm not sure if that's real or lasting. Given the odd timing, I half wonder if having covid made her face her mortality or something and jolt her into revisiting what is important to her...at least twice during that week prior to her talk of R she said this was the worst she ever felt and if it didn’t get better she’d rather just die. If that was part of it, then the question is whether that's enough to substitute for the typically necessary time and space, or if it's a temporary band aid that will fall off. But I don't have a crystal ball so that’s pointless to wonder about I suppose.

Anyway, I appreciate you asking these difficult questions, it forces me to think. I have a lot to figure out still.