Now I've had a couple of days to let this sink in, and to notice her behavior, and notice a bit more objectively how I feel about it all...
I guess the thing now is that I feel for the first time since this started that I have my wife back. She's not become any warmer or come closer yet, but has definately stopped being cold and distanceing... at least so far. I believe she will to the work, and will see the value and logic of not ending the marriage. I believe she can allow her viewpoint to mature and accept that a true long term relationship is different than what she expected. I also believe that although right now she likely feels a little let down by life upon discovering the things she has about long term relationships, she will grow to understand that ultimately it can be more fulfilling and richer than a highly charged, smotheringly passionate and frantically romantic new love ever could be.
I'm not kidding my self. I know that at this point at least, she's not coming back to me, but she's reassessing the marriage. I understand that to mean that she's beginning to see that the whole of the marriage is greater than the sum of its parts. That no single element should be allowed to make or break it. That she's seeing the value of accepting some less than ideal things for her to allow the ideals of the whole to shine through. She's seeing the value and meaning of true partnership, of full development of each 'self' by it self while joining with each 'other' for companionship, respect and trust. To me, it seems the essence of growing old together.
I'm exhausted. After she said this all the other day, I felt a sense of deflation as my guard lowered and the nervous energy I've been functioning on for so long relaxed a little bit. I'm reminded about the part of DB where Michele asks us to consider what you would be doing with all that energy you put in to saving your marriage if you marriage was working. I've read that, processed it, but never really understood it till this moment. It takes a lot of mental, nervous and emotional energy to do what I've been doing for the past 16 months. Maybe I can learn to harness it as excess now and do something brilliant.
I'm not kidding myself into believing it's over. It's far from over and may never be over. I still don't know what it will look like when it IS over. I don't know if my marriage is saved, or if it's just now entering it's last phase before we both see that it shouldn't be saved. But I feel better about all of it and about myself than I have in a long time.
