Quote: Perfectly natural and to be expected. You weren't happy in the old M, then the bomb came. You panicked, all of the sudden you couldn't believe how much you loved W, what an idiot you'd been, blah blah blah.
Now that the panic is letting up, you are able to take a more reasonable look at things and start toward a more balanced approach. You are bound to start thinking about what you want out of an R and what you aren't getting
This is exactly where I am right now with regard to my sitch. The positives that I see are relative to where things where right around bomb drop time....relatively speaking, things are better than they were four or five months ago...but, and this is the caveat, its positive in the sense that it is going back to the "old ways". Clearly, I have certain wants and needs in this R that are not being met and basically I feel like I'm settling for scraps by focusing on the old way of things as being a "positive." Does this make sense to anyone? I guess here is the dilemma....at some point I know that R saving must convert to R building and it will take both of us to do that. I guess its all about recognizing the right time to make it work and in the meantime I must continue to make positive changes in myself that will hopefully effectuate positive changes in the R to a degree that it will be comfortable to have her work on it as well.
Quote: I don't know where my W is right now. I keep saying that, but I DO know where I am right now and I like that place. I like that I am able to recognize that I have choices and I am free to make them whenever I want. I like that you, OT, let me in on a little secret about me being responsible for my own pain and suffering in all this. I like being in control of myself to a better extent and NOT needing to control my W. My W is going to do what she wants. If she wants to do me eventually, then great, if not, I have done all I can do to really be true to the man I want to be, and the man I think she really missed over the past few years. Will it be enough? Dunno. For now, it's mainly good. We'll see how tomorrow goes...and so on...and so on...
GH, I think this sums it up completely. Be the person you need to be for yourself. We can't control our spouses actions, only ours and hopefully they will eventually see the person they once fell in love with somewhere in there.
"Achieve success, but without vanity; Achieve success, but without aggression; Achieve success, but without gain; Achieve success, but without force." Lao Tzu
