First of all, GET OUT OF MY HOUSE AND STOP DOING MY WIFE!!!
lol
I swear, there is no way our W's are not long lost twins or something. For that matter, so are we!
But, her actions have been positive over the past few weeks.
Yep, check that here too. Does it mean anything? We hope so.
Over the course of the past few weeks, one of the few things that really bothered me is that my W was so quick to assure me that she loved me, that I was her life and that she didn't want to lose me.
Ok, this is being picky, but I found this interesting. Sure, you went on to expand the thought later on, but the sentence where you were going to tell us something that bothered you was filled with good things she's doing. Did you realize that? Funny, I wonder if we sometimes fail SO miserably in recognizing the good stuff (as you aptly point out later on). Something about cutting noses off in spite of faces or something like that.
But, on the other hand, she was still contacting the OM by phone on nearly a daily basis, spending anywhere from 20 to 30 minutes a day talking to him. Despite knowing this, I tried my best to make the best of it and we have started to connect on some levels again.
Um...but...you know what that means... "Well, my W is doing all this positive stuff BUT I can't see any of that because I am fixated on the negative."
I see more of my old W now than I have in the past six months. As an example, she has made it a point to spend time with me in the evenings before work, just hanging out and watching a show. Prior to this, she had used this time to sleep.
Amen. Me too except the part about her recommitting to the M. All this is good. She is trying to do the things that matter in a marriage, namely spending quality time.
Last week, I finally confronted her about talking on the phone with OM. I knew she was doing this because she had a phone card. I told her, in no uncertain terms, that contacting him in this way was seriously undermining our chances of reconciliation and that it hurt me that she had to continue to do so. She explained to me, again, that she had told him that she was working on our M, that she only talked to him as a friend, and that she had distanced herself "a lot" from him (I assume this means that she doesn't meet him in the mornings anymore and such). She told me that she needed to work this out in her own way.
I get the impression my W is trying in her non-direct, non-communicative way to say the same thing. She is trying to give me the impression (phone inside now and then when it used to live in her car) that she is having less contact with OM. She also gives me that line about needing to do it her way. Maybe they need to get a job at Burger King where they CAN have it their way! I agree with you, and said so to my W too. There can be NO communication with OM if we are to truly move past this. I am not going to hold her to that now though because unlike your W (and as OT so kindly put it) my W has NOT decided to focus on our M. Yours has, and I think you have the right to hold her to that word. I think she will eventually see the light and do the right thing. Like you said there ARE VERY positive signs right now from your W.
Okay, now, I don't believe for a second that she will stop and this bothered me. I played along and tried to make the best of the situation, all the while wondering whether I could take it anymore. Meanwhile, recognize, there were still many positives in her behavior. Problem was, I was focusing on the negatives.
Urethra!
So, yesterday, I sat down with my little journal and started to go over some things......I reviewed my goals from two months ago and took a look a how far things have come. it occurred to me at that moment that I had overlooked so many positives that if I didn't take steps to temper my behavior, i was going to throw the whole M right out the window.
Again, my brother from another mother, I am going through the same thing, once again, sans the commitment to the M from my W. I feel like I am missing out on the opportunity to validate and express positive reactions to my W's progress. I suppose for me, dunno if it's the same for you, that it's because I am not totally convinced (or really even a little bit) that she's not just figuring out how to "play" me better so she can just go on with the cake/eating it too bit and if I react at all, positive or negative, it will play into that. It's so hard because reacting at all is something we try to resist in detaching, etc. It's hard to know when to stop that and start being a real, feeling human again. Again, you don't have nearly the same problem. You know what you are seeing, and you know what you're doing. Just do it better.
This probably seems like a rambling post, and it is. I haven't had much time to sort through some of these things, but I just "feel" more positive. I response, I have become more upbeat with her, have made sure that she knows that I appreciate little things and have taken the initiative to move closer to her. All in all, it seems to be working for the time being, but only time will tell. I'm sure there will be bad days, but I think that we are starting to see the good days outweigh those.
This is the good part. Keep this outlook. Eventually, you both will have to get past your affairs (remember, I think she is still thinking about yours) and just fall back into trust once again. My C brought up trust in the session yesterday and it's been on my mind ever since. Eventually you will just have to get to the point where all signs point to that cliff and you'll have to jump off. Could you get hurt? Sure, but DB/DR/and being much more self aware than the first time around should make for a helluva parachute.
