Frank, I pulled some things from the last several posts...
Quote: I suppose she is 'trying out' being 'mom' and 'wife' to see how she likes it. Each thing we do is a test to see if it will 'be the same'. It won't. The negatives in our past life are gone.
I have read this in books and a lot here, about how when they come back to the marriage, they test us to see if we have really changed. I wonder how much they ACTUALLY do this. I mean I can't imagine my W, especially now, when the emotions are running high, testing me in any conscious way. I know that things she does, or that I do, act as reinforcement of what we perceive but are they really designed tests? I suspect that very little of what our wives are doing is preplanned testing of us. I would bet if anything its more about them allowing themselves exposure to certain things and judging their own reaction to it. I think THAT's the test.
Quote: One of the things she has never shown me is the desire to DO WHATEVER IT TAKES to make a relationship work. She would rather quit. But quitting didn't work out so far for her.
I think this goes to my previous statement. For the most part, my W has been trying to figure out the most pleasing, easy way out of the pain and suffering she's been enduring for the past couple years. Of course, it did take courage to take on the OM and move away from the marriage but I don't think they see it that way. They may still see it as something that "just happened" and thus still consider it easy. Coming back is easy too because it's what spares the most people pain and that's an easy way for a compassionate woman/person to behave. Again, what they are doing, coming back to us, is FAR from easy and they soon figure that out. So now, there are no easy ways out, or in and the one left to them, to simply walk away is about the only one that seemed hard from the get go.
I am rambling but I think my point is that for our W's, even though it's what they say they want, actually leaving the M is the hardest thing they have to contemplate because it's so complicated and filled with such real finality/pain unlike any other course of action they could take, including the A.
Quote: So, I don't know. Maybe she won't be able to recover the feelings we once had.
So long as she keeps clinging to the idea that love in the confines of a marriage should be filled with fairy dust, sparks and chills down the spine all the time, SHE will never recover her feelings for you. It's when she realizes that beneath, or beside that level of "in love" lies a wonderful, lasting love that is both from the heart and mind, that she will be hit HARD with feelings for you. When she truly sees the man you have become AND that you are willing to be HER man, transformed from someone who needed so much to someone do capable of giving love and attention to her.
Quote: you really must do other stuff just as crazy on the spur of the moment - it appeared to work
I agree. I am doing this with my W. I have not really posted much about it, but I am doing little dances around the house, picking her up and carrying her to bed, etc. She really seems to enjoy me being spontaneous AND physical with her, not in any sexual way, but in a playful way. It is a 180 for me and I would suspect for you as well.
