Cupcake and Brian: I am not disputing the fact she is in WAW mode, she may be. Not disputing the fact that it has been cyclical. But I will comment on what I feel and what I know in my mind and heart.
OK, start we were here little over a year ago. Same comments, Same feeling, same WAW. So I DB, I followed the cook book, a few slip ups and bam she has A. So you can see where I am a bity leary to jump right back into the approach. Upon discovery, I lost my compass and went everywhere and anywhere in the relationship. Resentment, anger, jealousy, self pity, slef loathing. This cost me a valuable opportunity to rebuild. I would start and just as W states I would explode. Start again. Repeat. Cyclical loop of destruction.
Then I came over here. There is no confusion of what the issue is. I am not here because I am attributing all my issues in my R to SSM. Far from it. I am here because in lurking here, I found some very solid people that are approching this in a way to address the only issue you can address, ourselves. I keep my other thread b/c there are great people there also. So please do not think I am minimizing this to a SSM issue.
So I am choosing to approach this from the "leap of faith" standpoint. From that I am trying to have no expectations. The only one that I can have is to expect myself to be true to what I say by actions and not live in contradiction to that.
I see the other approach as valid but not necessarily the only method here.
Breaking this down a bit further.
Point 1: Wife has stated she wants D (again) but yet no action.
Point 2: Wife admittedly states that this is not the only thing she has no caring or emotion for. (job, family, friends all are getting the same emotional deadness)
Point 3: I am seeing here request for space to be two-fold, one from having to face the issues she has and her pressures of her job. In the past, allowing her to do as she wished and play the guilt card on me and smothering card on me led to her feeling of entitlement and her having an A.
So that leads me to this point. As you both have stated, she is WAW. So I have nothing to lose. It is her choice. But I also feel that I will not further that choice by inaction and allowing her to dismiss the issues so easliy through divorce. I do not like this and I am taking my ball and leaving. Which I have been guilty of doing also.
I am choosing to allow myself to trust my wife and her statement. If it is false, then it is false and she files and we D. If it is true, I have shown trust in my leap of faith and started to rebuild.
There is great pain at the end of any of these roads if she is set on D. I am choosing the one path that shows I am taking the leap of faith.
As Cobra states in his post, this will take time and I carefully need to be able to interact without creating any doubt of what my intentions are. Do not act in a way that betrays that leap of faith, but do not proceed without boundaries.
I believe it is balance. Being able to allow her to have space and not feel threatened. To be able to seek her and not feel rejected if not taken up on. The sex deal is a reaction to me and my desire. I can control that and not act or act. But again the boundary that I have set is I will not be able keep moving in a relationship that is not loving, lacking in intimacy, and sexless. Will that decision come tomorrow? No.
I will end with this. The only one who knows what my wife is is my wife. This could be MLC, WAW, SSM, onset of early menopause, FOO issues, a whole slew of them or heaven forbid ALL OF THEM. For me to diagnose it is dangerous. For me to treat it with only one solution is even more dangerous. The only real solution here is change me and my actions.
F4W
Through honest giving of my love I will recieve 10 fold in return.
Just because a person does not love you in the way you want, does not mean they do not love you!
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