I get the impression you’ve built a wall around your heart and mind regarding W and her behaviour. It’s a common response. Do the uncommon and counterintuitive thing, keep your heart soft and squishy. Do not let your heart calcify and harden; for it does not serve you.
This is deeply perceptive on your part, D. I have built a wall and it's bigger than I realized. The rejections my wife has levied at me - denying intimacy, disrespecting me, calling me desperate at times, having a PA - are painful enough that I look for ways to avoid her outright. Even today I felt the sting. I'm out of town on a work trip and she texted to let me know she's having dinner w two girlfriends this weekend. One of these women is a real problem - bored and wayward in her own way, she was my wife's wingman at all the singles bars. Right when I saw the text I felt rejected. All of the momentum behind me, all the 180s and GAL felt futile when the feeling washed over me. Which I suppose just goes to show that I am still doing all this for her and not for me?
I know there are bad days interspersed with good ones during this process, and after a horrid travel day and very little sleep I know I'm vulnerable to feeling the down side a bit more today.
Quote
Her wayward mindset is the biggest problem in this entire ordeal. The longer she sees him waiting, the more secure she feels that he can be her fallback plan. As long as she feels she has him under her control (emotionally attached), why should she change anything? The old W would have appreciated him standing for their M, but once waywardness takes over, she sees his standing more as a barrier to her happiness. It will be after she weathers the storm of waywardness that her appreciation for her H will be felt.
That's an old quote from a thread of Sani'd I bookmarked, found here. I certainly feel like the fallback plan and I don't like how it feels.
ALRIGHT, ENOUGH WHINING. Thanks for listening. I'm kicking butt at work this week, made plans to go skydiving with my brothers this weekend, and plan to take my kids to one of the coolest museum's in the western US on Saturday. I'm going to get plenty of sleep tonight and wake up refreshed and ready to rock tomorrow.
