Waiting. Just waiting. W is not answering her phone today. Needed to tell her about a funds transfer she wanted done. Nothing. Ok so maybe she felt smothered but to go from answering her phone all the time, and calling me all the time (oh, and getting pissed if I EVER didn't answer for her) to now not answering for hours at a time irks me. Then she makes up reasons why she didn't answer, or maybe she doesn't. I know you all kill me when I do this but I am just comparing my W with who she has always been and when I see signs that parts of that woman are coming back, I think the rest of her is too. The part of her that doesn't answer her phone seems to be directly tied to the OM. I guess if I don't call, she can't NOT answer...lol. I thought this was past us now, OM or no OM. I am expecting too mu..er... Ok, I am expecting, and that's bad. Gotta stop, especially today. So I can't ask her what's up, I can't call her, I can't trust her, so I am relegated to just sitting back and detaching still. Great. I know better but I thought I may be able to relax for a couple hours. I WILL relax but I will have to work on it a bit more. There are real world positives and real world negatives in my sitch. There are also a world of thoughts in my head that I really need to put a stop to. I know I need to...Stop sign vision... So, before it's said, I know I am bringing this all on myself to some extent and it's up to me to stop it. I am not a victim and I am acting like one. Own the moment...
Okay, well you just killed my chances at offering any advice. Heed your own words!
"Achieve success, but without vanity; Achieve success, but without aggression; Achieve success, but without gain; Achieve success, but without force." Lao Tzu
Well, I did a baby bo-bo. The night went ok. Family time. Pretty good. Then at about 9:30 her phone rang. She checked it and let it ring. OM. I tried to mask my emotion and thought I did ok. My W knows me too well. She called me on it later. She said ever since her phone rang I was quiet. She said "Don't worry, I'm not going to make a phone call in front of you." I simply said "Didn't you want to talk." She said "No, why." I said "You said we would need to talk after last night. Is there anything to talk about?" She said "No, not right now." And the grand finale, I said "Ok" and put a smile on, went upstairs to finish the taxes. A few minutes later I walked back down the stairs and looked serious at her and said "Well, I do have one question for you." She said "ok". I said with a smile "Do you know what our mortgage interest was?" She smiled...I asked "What? What did you think I was going to ask?" with a big grin. It broke the ice a bit. I have been fine with her since then. I am not saying it was good to do what I did, but I wanted to give her the opportunity if she wanted it to talk. I guess in her time she either will or won't. And I move on to the next episode...
GH, I think you are being hard on yourself here....I see nothing wrong with the way you handled the sitch at all. Sure, you had a very minor slip, but you immediately corrected and turned the experience into a positive. Bravo!
By the way, interesting that she didn't want to talk to OM......
"Achieve success, but without vanity; Achieve success, but without aggression; Achieve success, but without gain; Achieve success, but without force." Lao Tzu
Rob, thanks for that. I think I did ok. Really, I think I got lucky but whatever the reason, it went ok. I just hope she talks soon.
And as for not wanting to talk to OM, no, not interesting. Remember, she doesn't usually keep her phone in the house. I don't know why it was in, but she would NOT answer it in front of me, or on the 2 occasions she did, she made a BIG deal out of it.
I guess I am lucky that she is not throwing it in my face. I also guess I know why she keeps her phone out in her car...lol.
Anyway, I do not read anything into her not answering. I am relatively sure they talked at least once later on. Will not speculate on how long, or what they talked about.
Well, you know as well as I do that she will not talk until its time. This is probably one of my biggest complaints as well with my W....I'm ready to talk at the drop of a hat, but she will clam up until the day that she feels ready to open up. I also happen to think that your W and my W are very similar. In the event that my W moves beyond OM, I don't think it will be with any great fanfare and she will likely NOT want to talk about it. Her actions will be the true indicator. In time, she will be ready, but only on her time.
"Achieve success, but without vanity; Achieve success, but without aggression; Achieve success, but without gain; Achieve success, but without force." Lao Tzu
In the event that my W moves beyond OM, I don't think it will be with any great fanfare and she will likely NOT want to talk about it.
I totally agree with that. My W is a true conflict avoider, which will make it hard for her to break things off with him, and harder still to talk about it with me because she will think I won't take it well. I just need some kind of closure, or at least a jumping off point to say "ok, now we are ready to work on US again." If she won't ever confirm or deny that the OM is gone, how can I do that? I guess the real question is how do we "close" the marriage again and go back to the state of being where it's NOT ok to cheat without them committing to the OM being gone? It's a tough question and one that will likely not have a neat and clean answer for either of us. We just need to realize that DB extends beyond this point. I used to think it was just a set of tools designed to get us TO this point of our W's thinking about us again, but now I see that we need to continue to practice DB to maintain through this transition. I think we are in a perilous place right now and reacting from impatience or emotion will get us in trouble. Keep the faith.
Quote: I used to think it was just a set of tools designed to get us TO this point of our W's thinking about us again, but now I see that we need to continue to practice DB to maintain through this transition. I think we are in a perilous place right now and reacting from impatience or emotion will get us in trouble.
Absolutely....patience is clearly in order here. I agree with you 100%, my W will likely find it hard to break things off with him...he's a "sweet and caring guy" (yeah, never mind the fact that he is so sweet and caring that he doesn't value our family enough to back away...but I digress).
I trust that there will come a time when it will be clear to us that we can talk about these things. Again, I don't think it will be clear from their words, but from their actions. Once we see those changes, I think over time we will recognize when it is a good time to bring the subject up.
I have to tell you that from my own experience, I don't remember having any conversation after the EA where my W and I set the record straight. That maybe was a mistake on my part, but just know, it won't come automatically.
Keeping the faith.....
"Achieve success, but without vanity; Achieve success, but without aggression; Achieve success, but without gain; Achieve success, but without force." Lao Tzu
(yeah, never mind the fact that he is so sweet and caring that he doesn't value our family enough to back away...but I digress).