W31, OM20

[RBinBR]

Well, surprise, surprise. W called me at 12:30 am and asked me to come back and bring some cough medicine for D. She actually had some medicine that should have worked, so I think that she really just wanted me to come back over, now that she was done talking to OM for the night.

So I did stay, and we watched part of a movie together and then went to bed. It was very nice, lots of snuggling and holding, but no ML and no kissing. It is clear to me that she wants badly to kiss and ML, but won't -- either out of a warped sense of loyalty to OM or because she is afraid of getting my hopes up -- I'm not sure which (or maybe both). At one point, she did kiss me on the lips and kind of caught herself and stopped.

We dropped D off this morning and then got breakfast together and then did some financial stuff.

It was an experience that was both highly enjoyable and extremely frustrating. It was enjoyable to spend time with her and have her clearly enjoy cuddling and snuggling with me. Having her fall asleep using my shoulder as a pillow ... I'd forgotten how great that felt. She actually said, "I miss having you take care of me."

On the other hand, seeing her panties and OM's boxer shorts in their laundry hamper together is way beyond difficult. Seeing his love notes to her tenderly placed in her bookcase was also almost impossible -- it took every inch of discipline I had not to tear them up and throw them away when she wasn't looking. I wouldn't recommend that anyone in my sitch go to a "love nest" like this unless they have a very strong stomach and are very skilled at controlling their emotions -- I know that I couldn't have gone there three weeks ago without losing it. Fortunately, all I ever did was grit my teeth a couple of times.

Remember NOT to crowd her, talk about OM, the relationship...

Well, she keeps bringing OM and the R up, so we keep talking about them. OM still thinks that the two of them are going to eventually get married. She is disillusioned with him but still loves him and doesn't think she can leave him.

Almost everything that she tells me about him is negative, though. Maybe that's just because she knows that I don't want to hear about how great he is, but I really have a hard time understaning how she can put up with him at all.

Overall, though, her attitude was not as good as last week, when she was speaking of "when" the A was over. Today, she was back talking about it "going either way." I'm not disappointed, though, because I know how this process works.

In the 15 hours we spent together, I only slipped up on a couple of things.

I think I tried too hard to up the passion level a couple of times. Although I know that she wants it, she's determined not to and I should really quit trying until I get some kind of sign that this is changing. I want her to be comfortable around me -- which she is.

One verbal error happened when she mentioned how much OM wants to meet our D, and how much he loves children. I know that I should have let it go because she has agreed that OM shouldn't see D, but I said that he couldn't really love kids because he had no problem breaking up D's family and he also had no problem creating a ba$tard child (go back a page if you need that context). All that did was make her defend OM -- not something I wanted her to do. I then calmly said I didn't want to argue, but I wasn't going to accept something I didn't believe to be true. We then dropped the matter.

I also should have kept my mouth shut and just smiled when she said that she feels like she has messed up her marriage and she owes it to OM and to herself to give their R a real chance before abandoning it and hurting him. I shouldn't have said it, but I asked why she didn't care about hurting D, who has cried so much missing her. She asked me if I wanted her to feel guilty, and I told her no, I wouldn't want her to come back out of guilt -- I didn't want her to feel guilty at all, not about D and not about hurting OM if she decided to dump him.

Although those were slip-ups, I was not angry or upset in the slightest when I said them, so I'm not going to beat myself up too badly when the visit was fantastic overall.

I suggested that W and D spend a mommy-daughter night together tonight and she asked with concern, "You don't want to come over?" I replied that of course I want to spend time with her, but I think she and D really need some time alone to connect, and she agreed.