Nik & Hon: More than happy to visit and help out where I can. The one weekend I had "free" to catch up here, I tried me best to get reaquainted with as many of thoses I have kept tabs on over time, but ran out of time before getting to update my own saga. For the next four weeks, my shift rotation returns to nights again and should allow me to be more "present".

PnB Thanks for always looking in on me.

Shiny !!! Glad you haven't left us for good! Altho had hoped your absense meant you no longer needed to look for our assistance.

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Problem is...can I stay married forever to this new CJ

Its a quandary for sure! One I will in which I had to modify from my earlier post ... I'll get to that in a moment...

As I had predicted ... July turn out to be really busy ... the biggest disapointment tho was having the NY get-together fall thru. Everything else turned out pretty good.

From my posting on 6/26:
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... and as Slowly pointed out as I had mentioned in the last post, I have to come to accept CAW for who she is now. Forget waiting for CAW I first fell in love with to come back. Its not gonna happen. I have to look upon CAW as a whole new woman in my life. This is big ... for not only do I need to DB to draw her closer to me ... but I have to start thinking of DBing myself to draw me closer to her.

It wasn't long after I wrote this that I had realized the statement, as the goal, wasn't entirely correct and needed modification. During my first week of vacation it became quickly apparent that I cannot be happy living with the person that CAW is now!. So I won't accept living the rest of my life with the kind of person she is being now, but I can and will have to accept the fact that CAW will never return to who she use to be when we were both happy together either ... that part of the statement is still valid.

I have to keep reminding myself in the belief that people are dynamic beings. It very weel be like watching a glacier move, but people do eventually change based on new experiences life hands them that makes them reassess their mindset which in turn affects their behaviors ... so to keep me going, I'm gonna have to believe in the hope that the current trend of experiences (including me being persistant in my DBing) will have the effect of CAW wanting to change who she is now to a "future" CAW I will be happy living with if this M is to become successful at avoiding being "busted".

For the first three quarters of the vacation, I quickly turned my focus onto projects to keep me busy as I was having a hard time dealing with her indifference 24/7. Unexpectedly, halfway thru the second week (and the day after D11's b-day bowling bash), CAW's pendulum started swing the other way again. We were having a quiet evening after an uneventful day as D11 & I were sitting on the bed chatting about I forget what while CAW laid down beside us when she grabbed my hand so she could rest her head on it. Since then she continues to breach her physical distancing with more hand touching and with one more intimate night.

The thing is folks ... I'm having an increasing harder time staying positive about CAW and me. I no longer see these moments as baby steps as time and time again I see them all before and then CAW pushes away again. "Big deal ... It won't last." Now all I see is the cycle and knowing the coldness will come back and with it the hurt I feel each time it does. No amount of detachment takes away the dejection of being pushed away time and time again. Its like livin' in a time loop (Bill Murray's Groundhog Day) ... after a while it becomes wearisome. Especially of the cycle startin all over again. I just want it to stop. I find myself trying to convince myself the recent closeness is because OM must be out of town ... afterall, that seems to be what happened last summer.

... and then there's always step-D24's letter from Feb. always haunting me about the "plan" for next year to move with each other to strike out on a new life.

This is all getting harder to deal with and keep a PMA. I startin to feel like any attempt to do so is just grasping at straws. Is it foolish of me to hold on for the CAW of the future to arrive?

Don't know if I can come up with the appropriate answer. Maybe its a case of no longer trying to see the forest thru the trees, because I tired of the limbs whacking me in the head. Willing to sit back for now and let you folks deliberate this one for a while. Maybe it will help make things clearer for me.

'til later,
KAW