Thursday lunch with W: W was complaining about the difficulty in being a single parent. I refrained from telling her that she is NOT a single parent. I simply listened and then asked her a question. I asked her, if you had a magic wand and could wave it and make your life perfect, what would it look like? Describe it to me. Paint me a picuture. She answered immediately that it would look exactly as it does now. I shot back, "Bullshit. If your life were perfect now you wouldn't be complaining about what you were just complaining about." She thought about it a second and then asked rhetorically, if I could change ANYTHING and make my life perfect? I nodded yes, NOW your are getting what I was asking you. She continued, "You would be home, our marriage would be loving, we would be getting along great, and you wouldn't be mean to me." I took a deep breath and asked, am I mean to you now? She said no, not usually. We make progress, then either I backslide and she runs or she just runs.
Again, she talks about her ideal and her ideal is she and I working out our M and getting along in a living marriage. I so want to shake her and tell her then let's make it so. COMMIT to working on your M to make your ideal a reality!!
Better yet, I will focus on me and what control, ME! I will stop hesitating on asking her what needs to be asked. Better still, I will stop hesitating on SAYING what needs to be said. I will SAY what I believe WE need to be be DOING to make our ideal a reality! No guts, no glory. Just do it!
Friday's happenings: Had lunch with MIL. Told MIL some my M developments and she said, "If I didn't know you two and just walked in and saw how you two interact, I'd never guess that anything was wrong." I told MIL that that was not the first time I had heard that. As a matter of fact, most everyone who sees W and I interact can't discern a problem. MIL ended the conversation by saying that she would love nothing more than for W and I to reconcile. THAT was the first time she ever expressed a preference one way or the other to me.
Today was interesting. I went to my D's carnival. W signed herself up, but she was late because of a signing. When W arrived, I told her I didn't have any cash and she made a flippant disapproving remark and I just simply gathered my S and walked away from her. When I came back to her a little bit later, she made another sh*tty remark and I just looked ater her again, no remark again. She called me back over for a min, and I then left and took both our D and S with me to the bank to get cash
W then left to go to another signing. I took the children to her house. I sent her a text message that read, "Making a mess at your house." I was just joking. She responded by text, "Not OK." I took offense at that and responded with, "Whatever! =-p"
When she got back to the house, I was in the kitchen cleaning up and she asked me if I had changed S? I said, "Of course, do you know why I changed him? Cuz I am a great Dad!" A little later on in the afternoon (20 min or so), W asked me again if I had changed our S. My response was, "I already answered that once and my answer hasn'g changed." She got pissed! Immediately, I saw my mistake and begin telling her that going forward, I will simply answer her questions simply and I apologized for my error. Too late! Ugh!
She began snapping at me about how I want to change HER and making snide remarks about how I want to make this marriage work but some things never change. I didn't let her run away like she wanted to do. I followed her and she said come with me outside, I don't want D to hear this. I told her I would, but told her we can actually have conversation that needn't be our of earshot of D. What she meant was that SHE wasn't capable of having a conversation while mad.
She proceeds to tell me that she's perfect just the way she is and just the way she is NOT. That is a saying I have told her repeatedly, to boost her PMA and self-esteem. Unfortunately, she was using that saying to say that she didn't need to change ANYTHING! I didn't say this, but in reality, I don't want to change her, I want HER to change her. I want her to GROW UP! At the time though, I stopped and asked her, "So you don't need to change anything?" I was giving her enought rope to hang herself and our M. Had she said that she didn't need to change anything, I would have taken off my wedding band right then, handed it to her and left, telling her that when she was ready to grow up and work on her M, give me a call. Fortunately, she regained her composure and said that she does have changing to do.
Anyway, after further discussion, I told W that when she gets pissed, she STOPS listening and starts spewing venom. W then tells me that THAT'S NOT true. I tell her acttually it IS. I continued, telling her, when someone very close to us tells us we behave in a certain way on a regular basis, it's most likely true, despite our repeated assertions that it's NOT true. Truth lies in what someone does moreso than in assertions to the contrary. ACTIONS speak so much louder than words. I believe I drove that point home sufficiently for her to acknowledge its truth.
Finally, she calmed down enough to admit that she hadn't even heard what I said about apologizing and making the statement that I would change my behavior in the future. She finally acknowledged that she stopped listening as soon as she got pissed. We then went into the house and things were fine. She blew off her steam and was calm towards me. I was in the front room playing with my S and W walked in while I was sending her a text message. She asked who I was texting to and I told her the truth, her. Since she walked in on me, I told her I was embarassed and told her that since she saw me inputting the text msg, I might as well TELL her and I took her hand and asked her to sit down and listen. She did.
I told her that I was truly sorry for ASSUMING that her first text msg to me was one of anger. She siad she was joking. I told her that I would begin, immediately, assuming that she is joking if I am going to assume anything. [Separately, when I talked with Frank, I came up with a better way of handling such sitchess. I will ask her if she was joking because what she said 'kinda' hurt my feelings. THAT would at least give her the opportunity to clarify or at minimum, give her the opportunit to look at herself and her words/actions in real time.] I also re-itereated my stance that, going forward, I would simply answer her questions, even if I had given her an answer previously bacuase doing anything else does not promot intimacy. I then acknowledged that I wanted to get to know WHO she is today. I told her that the majority of our interactions are work focused. In reality, our interactions are also child focused. I told her that I wanted to get to know her better and wanted to increase our personal time together to facilitate getting to know her better again. She was agreeable. We ended up parting on good terms.
Some things I have truly learned, by mistake more than anything, are: (1) that when my W makes her cutting remarks, walking away from her is best. She is actually able to 'see' what she is doing real time and I don't have to be the one pointing it out; (2) that I need to assume that my W is playing around/joking FIRST or question whether she is joking or not while acknowledging that my feelings were hurt by her remark; and (3) that I simply need to answer her questions without getting bothered by the number of times the question is asked. This is a great instance of ACCEPTING life as it is and not JUDGING anyone, especially not my W. I learn more about me every day. I learn that being an impatient judging A-hole is the bane of my existence; THAT guy is my 'hitman.' My authentic self is a patient accepting {fill in the male now}. The more time I spend in my authentic self, the less time I need to mop up after that inconsiderate bastard of a hitman who resides in me just under the surface. Every day I work to kill that hitman and tell him the even if he won't die, that my authentic self is IN CHARGE.
One last bit of info from tonight. My ex-neighbor, from where my W still lives, is going thru a D. This is the same woman that my W accused me of trying to hit on in the past (untrue, BTW). Anyway, she called me to take me up on my offer to help her move from her house. I offerred to move both her and her soon to be ex-husband. I asked her how she was doing and she ended up asking me how I am doing. She is another person who is thoroughly confused by my W and I. She was telling me that she didn't understand how I dealt with my W dating OM plus all the other crap thrown my way during my sitch. I told her what I've told her in the past, I am not done. NO ONE is going to determine when I am done except me. I told her that my W told me that one person can NOT save a M. Neighbor said BOTH S's need to work to save the M. I repeated what I said to my W, that yes, one person can save a M by holding him/herself together long enough for the S to gather themselves and make the decision to join the 'fighting' S in saving the M. So yes, ultimately both S's are needed, but at least initially, one S is sufficient. I further explained that I could have let our M end if I didn't believe so strongly in the sanctity of M. I also told her what my W said about me wanting to change W. I told neighbor that I wanted W to change W, but more to the point, I wanted W to GROW UP!
I love my W. I am not going to let her decide when I am done, especially when I know that she is thoroughly confused and not in the corect state of mind to be making a decision to END her marriage. I will STAND for both of us, our family, and for what I know is correct. I believe she WILL come around and join me in the fight to preserve out R and to build our M anew on the solid foundation of our incredibly strong mutual love for each other. I will continue to STAND until she wakes up, grows up and makes the decision to make our M work for our lifetimes.
Thanks again for listening to my looong ramblings about my sitch, my life and my beliefs.
We make progress, then either I backslide and she runs or she just runs. 
