OK, ex responded. He liked getting my email and sent me a very detailed one. It had lots of details about his day-to-day life.

He responded well to my thank yous and appreciation of him. I could tell it made him happy.

He also started the email off with, “sorry it took so long to respond. I’ve just had a lot of problems.” That “cave” thing is true. No doubt that I should wait things out if he seems distant. This info is a huge light bulb moment. I just hope I can put this info in my long-term memory. It is so easy to forget this stuff. I always want to fix, change and cling to him, but I can’t do that.

Ever since we have gotten along better, he does a lot of reminiscing about the past. He did that in this email too. He saw family and told me that they said hello. His extended family members know we still talk. I am sure they think he is crazy. He told me how he was reminiscing with them!

Things have been this way for awhile. He always goes on and on about how much he loves me. I worked really hard to make this happen, and I do acknowledge how far I have come. He used to hate me so much……DBing, forgiving him, learning ways new ways to communicate with him, Alanon and books on how to heal painful relationships is what helped me. This man hated my guts for 9 months (I am sure longer but this is when he started acting on it) and it took an additional year of learning and applying new skills to get where I am today. I have made a lot of mistakes on the way and am still making mistakes.

Ex seemed to respond to my showing of trust too. I think this is where I need to do the most work. I have made a lot of progress. However, I think this is where I have made most of my mistakes over the last year. If I could really hone in on this, I think it would make a huge difference. For the most part, I have tried to make him feel that I trust him. I have improved drastically in this arena. Nevertheless, it was the comment I made every two weeks or even only once a month that probably upset him. He always knew deep down that I didn't trust him completely with his sobriety and even his commitment and love for me. Dropping the rope on his addiction will make a huge difference.

Furthermore, not calling him and continuing to give him space so he can get his life under control will make him feel trusted even more. This also helps me to GAL and realize that he chooses to not get sober that I will be OK without him in my life. It is a win-win situation for both of us.

He also responds well to acceptance. I got this down awhile ago. However, in the beginning, I didn’t do this at all. In Gray’s book it talks about how women feel that there are always ways to improve the husband. He says that this makes men feel unaccepted. I tried to change this a lot. He responded very well to this. In fact, in the card he sent me for Valentines, he mentions that we make a good couple because “we accept each other’s differences”. WOW!

Now for my response to his email………

I was going to wait a few days and play hard to get and mysterious. Instead I decided to respond right away. I read in Mars and Venus that women tend to punish men when they come out of their caves. I didn’t want to do that. I kept it light and upbeat and just tried to convey appreciation, trust, acceptance and encouragement.

I added encouragement for this reason……Ex will go on and on about his daily problems. He will say don’t worry about me and then give me this whole list of things that make me worry. Why does he do this?????? Any ideas men? Encouragement is listed in Gray’s book at the bottom of the list. It says not to give advice so I didn’t. I tried validating mixed in with a little bit of encouragement.

He probably won’t respond for awhile, and I actually hope he doesn’t. I think our time apart is good for both of us.

Thanks,
Sam

Gabriel……..I must have a good memory. I just remember you snooping on wife’s computer and things taking a bad turn after that. I guess I have been ready these boards for way too long.