What does keeping the door open mean to you?

Keeping my heart open to him. So I guess it’s a frame of mind. I don’t want to file for D. Yes, I’ll likely sue the snot out of H – but only after my head and heart have agreed that I don’t want him anymore.

Fact is, bigAl, that I’m preggo. I don’t have to worry about whether I want to date someone else. Nobody wants to date two-people-in-one. In reality, would I be dating people this instant if the possibility existed? Yes. Would I sleep with them? Depends on how much I had to drink. But it would all be an effort to “move on.” I’m having to face that right now without the help of anything: alcohol (even socially), late nights hanging out with friends, sex, any of that. And it irritates the sh!t outta me that he can do all those things and I can’t. I know that sounds really crappy, but it’s true. I’m envious of his life right now, because I know if I had access to that kinda of life, I wouldn’t be sitting here pining away over the a$$hole.

To answer your question about what would be different if I left the door open as opposed to slamming it shut, I guess nothing. I guess my biggest challenge is leaving the door open for him without trying to get him to come home, as I feel I have been doing the past couple months. I’m almost addicted to DBing, and I believe it’s starting to hurt me because my H is abusing my validations and understanding.

What is the difference between being done and no longer doing all the work to save the M and going dark?

A feeling. I can go dark with intentions of working on myself blah, blah, blah. But let’s face it: Most people do that to “show” their Ss what they’ll be missing. To become a better person so their S sees the change and wants to come home. I don’t mean to sound egotistical, but I’m already a decent person with a great job and great children and great hobbies and great friends who I hang out with. I already know myself. I already have a life. I already stay busy. I don’t necessarily need to work on me; I'm in touch with me, so all I’ve really had time to do is “go dark” in an attempt to waste my time, because I know that time is the great healer. And the longer I’m without H and not contacting him, the closer I am to getting over him. Let’s call a spade a spade.

The situation seems to call for behaving as though you are done and seeing what happens.

I feel like I may have already screwed that up with writing him a letter that was actually quite nice. I told him we should give one another a week to truly consider what we wanted. I guess at the end of next week I don’t have to call him or talk about the letter at all, then just move into behaving as though I’m done. Going dark, in other words. I've already started that. I can just keep doing it without mentioning the letter. I guess that’s what I should do. Just ignore that I ever wrote the stupid sappy validating letter in the first place. Right now, I wanna forget that I ever validated his stupid feelings in the first place.

I can’t seem to muster up any energy or opportunity to truly "move on" with my life. Being preggo, regardless of what anyone says, is a major obstacle to moving on. I can’t go work out double-time in the gym. I can’t go out to bars and forget my troubles for a while. I can’t go out with guys – I mean, I could, but they’d prolly have to be pretty sick-o to want to date a preggo girl. Let’s be honest. I can't even really dress up and look pretty 'cause a) I don't have the will or energy and b)I don't have the stinkin' wardrobe. Okay, I'll be honest. I'm pregnant for cryin' out loud. I don't feel too d*mn pretty right now.

You are afraid that you won't get over him and when he comes crawling back you'll have to drop all the fun things you can see doing once single because you want him back.

No. I’m afraid I will get over him. That’s the point. I’m afraid to move past him because I love him, and right now I miss what he brought to my life. And I’m afraid that if he gives me six months, I’ll be over him completely and won’t want to be with him at all – right at the time he comes back. Why is that so bad? Because, as I said, I know I love him, and I know I’m willing to work things out with him – though I’m told I’m a fool for feeling so – and I know that my life would be a lot better, a lot easier, with him in it. I don’t want to be a single mother of three children. I don’t want to have to “find” another partner.

But eventually I’ll get used to it. And I will have built up so much resentment toward H that I’ll never have him back, regardless of how much better he made my life. I’ll get to the point where I’ll kinda cut my nose off to spite my own face. That’s what I’m afraid of.

If H wants me back, he needs to come crawling back pretty soon. There’s only a miniscule window of opportunity for him. He’s already missed one. He royally f**ked it up, actually. Once the baby’s born, I’m going to be so resentful of him that I likely won’t want him back … unless he catches me in the first six weeks postpartum as ex-H did. Hormones, and not logic, rule in those six weeks.

I don’t even want to think of having the power to dictate what's going to happen in my R. H has to come back first, and I don’t see that happening.

We’re kinda back to square one. H apparently stopped by today at lunch to put the telephone bill in the back door. Ugh. Does this seem familiar? His broken-down car is here. I’m sure he’ll be here in the days ahead. Could he not have brought the bill then? Maybe he was hoping to catch me here at lunch; I was here the other day when he stopped by at lunchtime. I guess I can say with certainty that he wasn't banging OW today. At least him dropping off the bill tells me that much. They didn’t spare a d*mn minute of his lunch hour the other day…

Oh, and don't talk to ME about giving up chances to get laid BTW. What's it been - a week?

Oh, I’m not talking about giving up chances. I’m talking about getting laid, period. That’s not going to happen with a complete stranger right now. Not many guys, I would think, would want to be intimate enough with my unborn child to get *that* close.