Hello all

It is about eleven months since I enrolled on this board (at which point H and I had been separated for seven months). At the time my H had broken up with OW 1 and was very depressed and seemed to be making overtures to me - he wanted to be friends. Things seemed to be going well, but he kept his distance after all and started up another R with OW 2, with whom he had cultivated a "friendship" during the last two years of our marriage. I relaize now that although he was reconnecting in some ways around Christmas and New Year, he was also setting in motion the beginnings of his new R with OW 2. Although it lasted only a few weeks, OW 2 stuck around him (she is from another country) as a "friend". Then he reconnected briefly with OW 1. Then when I went away for the long summer vacations this year, he restarted an R with OW 2. I don't know what the status of their R is right now.

I was reviewing all the emails I have sent H since about this time last year, when I started DBing. There are over 120 of them, and all of them without exception are written with restraint and often with love. Not an angry word there. The most I fell off the wagon was with a bit of defending and explaining once or twice.

In contrast, H's emails to me have been all over the place -angry, ranting, contrite, tender, apologetic, apopletic, reasonable - you get the picture. Going by the emails it looks like he is on more of a roller coaster than I am, LOL!

I may have come to this BB to rant and rave and cry, but mostly all my H got to see was a rather consistent me. He didn't like it when I laid down some boundaries, or seemed to get on with my life, for example when I travelled away for the summer, etc.

Right now we are civil with each other, he even signed off with "Love H" in one email to me when I was away recently to see my dying mother, but thereafter he reverted to just "H" or "Cheers".

Tomorrow we are meeting for lunch, at his invitiation. I am not cetain of his motives at all, but I will go and try to enjoy myself! I will practice my listening skills, and my validating skills! I will go to bed at a reasonable time tonight so I don't have rings under my eyes!

If I think of any 180s between now and tomorrow lunch, I will put them into practice. Any other tips?

Livnlearn

"The unexamined life is not worth living" - Socrates