I've up to this point refrained from posting this because it is very pessimistic, but I decided that you can take it for what it's worth.
Update: XW mentioned parent/teacher conferences when I stopped to pick up the kids. She called right after to confirm when my youngest son's conference was. She was very talkative, nice, jovial on the phone. She called again at 10 to ask me a question that was up my alley. We discussed that for 15-20 minutes. She does feel reasonably free calling me and does come to the door to talk. She even offered spontaneously for me to take the kids out tonight which is something she doesn't usually do.
Are these all positive signs? Are things on the right track?
In case you didn't figure it out...I was talking about my first XW, a woman I have been divorced from for 8 years and have no interest in having a relationship with other than coparenting. We've been civil, even friendly (with the exception of occasional blow-ups) since the divorce.
I don't think about her at all. I don't wonder what she's thinking. I don't wonder or care if she misses me. I don't analyze whether she has regrets. She is someone that is the mother of my children and that is it. I moved on and made a new life with someone else and was and still am generally happy with my life. Life goes on. I would actually be horrified to think that those are signs that she's interested in me, even though when the shoes on the other foot we look at those same signs and interpret them as signs of things going in the right direction.
Positive interactions happen even to divorced couples that aren't DBing. I think it depends on the people, but friendly interactions and civility are easy. And they don't mean that the spouse is reconsidering. My first XW has had 8 years to come back crying how she would like to try again. The reality is that we are both happier divorced.
I just wrote that because I think quite a few people on here are on their first divorce and don't have the perspective of time.
In the end, it's not the years in your life that count. It's the life in your years. Abraham Lincoln
It is hard to fail, but it is worse never to have tried to succeed. Theodore Roosevelt
