Any hope after divorce???

[sage]

Hi there,

My two cents...

Of note...the only time she brings up D is after I've been kind of dark. In between it doesn't seem to come up.

So, can you view this as w possibly waving the white flag that your "kind of dark" approach is too much for her to comfortably handle?

In the school of "do what gets you closer to your goals", if your assessment is accurate...going "kind of dark" leads to D talk from your w.

THAT doesn't sound particularly positive.

Then she told me going to law school was her dream and she'd kick herself if she looked back with regret about not going. I told her to go for it...that she has my support.

Perhaps she should talk to my h! (After the bomb dropped and he quit his job, he was reintroduced to his dream of going to law school...he's almost 2/3rds of the way thru!).

What would it take to make this happen? Can you start out by encouraging w to talk about "the dream" (her OWN dream?) even more? Ask her "what kind of law intrigues you?" or something of that ilk.

I KNOW it's hard to have those conversations when inside you want to scream "but what about me? us?" but if you can tolerate listening to the ambiguity and uncertainty, I think you will gain closeness.

I said it sounded like fun and we haven't went dancing like that for a long time. She said that's part of why she was dancing so much. I indicated that we should have made more time for each other to do those things. She didn't think that was the problem. That if the other problems hadn't been there it would have been okay not to go out. I said that I know. I wish there hadn't been those issues, that I wished I had listened when she told me about them, and that in ways it was good this happened because it gave me a chance to look at the things I didn't like about myself and change them. She still doesn't express complaints about the marriage in more than vague terms.

So...I'm sure I've asked this and you've answered...what SPECIFIC things are you doing to address the issues that w is referring to in your M?

When I created my DB goals each time, I tried to focus on three things:

1. one goal to bring about positive interactions in the here and now

2. one goal to specifically address an issue in the m

3. one goal for me -- my learning, my pma


I think you've got plenty of positives to work with here...I think you know my view but I'll restate...you CAN interact with w in a way that is NOT pursuing but that in no way resembles the "dark" that seems to confuse her so.

Sage