Hi CC & Wesse! It has been one of those nice days during which I heard from a couple of long distance friends I haven't spoken with in quite some time. There really is nothing like good friends and, boy, aren't you able to sift through friends and find the solid reliable ones when there's trouble in paradise? I feel incredibly fortunate with a few of them who have made it so clear during this mess that they're always there for me.
CC, let's see if I can shed some more light on things. My H has to this day never said that he wants a D. Nor has he ever said or implied that he was willing to completely throw in the towel. That said, however, I can recall several conversations when I pressed him about his not "working" on the marriage (having a gameplan, marriage counseling...) and his very defensive response was that "hanging in there and not filing for D was working on it." My response and outrage at the time is not worth getting into now, but I think he has been one of these people who needed to feel differently about me without very CONSCIOUSLY doing much on his part (or perhaps I should say do much in response to my outward urging). I know, it sounds lazy and so obviously self-serving for him to just sit back and hope and wait to see the light, but I do believe that he needed to do it his way and that it was absolutely critical that I let go of the resentment and anger surrounding our separation and go about my business. My assessment of our situation is that he truly has needed to feel in control of where he goes in this and at what pace he moves. I said it before a long time ago on this board that he is probably so control sensitive that should I say "drive carefully" on his departure on a blizzard night he'd think "oh great, now she's even telling me how to drive!"
One thing I should add is that H and I have gotten a sitter off and on during much of our separation and gone out as a couple. Although romance really wasn't a part of those occassions, we both always openly noted what a great time we'd had. As wonderful as that may read, the end of the evenings were typically difficult, as I so regularly heard my mind's mind saying "so, does he think it gets better than this? what does he want?"
I think my H knew that I really was at the point of truly accepting the possibility that we wouldn't reconcile and that our lives would go in different directions except for the common thread of sharing two beautiful and wonderful children. It honestly was when my focus turned from strategy re. H and his decisions to what decisions I needed to make for me and things I could do for me and my girls that things started to noticeably change. I was able to let go of built up resentment, which I think he could always sense even if I didn't express it orally. I gradually stopped initiating any OR conversations and just started living without pressing him for anything. I believe Michele's section on not talking about the relationship with your spouse (unless he or she initiates it) was critical in my situation and I believe it is so often true that if we do all the focussing on fixing things then they can opt to do less (consciously or subconsciously). Why worry or do any soul searching when someone else is doing all of it in the relationship?
Wesse, I can really relate to so much you wrote in your last post. My H has admitted or, I should perhaps say, claimed that he said some wonderfully positive or agreeable things in the past to me because he wanted to avoid one of my "moods" or just have the subject dropped at the time. Aren't those great admissions of using the worst communications skills possible? On my end of the responsibility though, there certainly were in hindsight those instances when I drilled way too much or "beat a dead horse." I've worked real hard during the last 1 1/2 years in thinking about what his likely response is going to be when I share something unpleasant with him and catch myself in my delivery like you wouldn't believe. I've been known in the past to throw a little too much sarcastic cutting into my tone. I refuse to keep the important things stored up inside me, but I do manage to process it all a little more carefully than my prior "shoot from the hip" ways.
As strange as it may sound, I almost find myself playing the conversation out in my head first and imagining the tone that will result should I pursue it one way verses another. It's not a game or allowing myself to be a doormat, but it's probably closest to envisioning how you would go about questioning the technically hostile witness and getting them to be a friendly one (I couldn't resist, given our cross-examination discussion earlier on).
