"Officially" piecing... now the real work begins..

[toughlover]

Hey that's cool, learning to go with the flow and make it work for YOU.

So along those lines...instead of looking for reassurance from him, is there anything you're pretty sure you wants reassurance about from YOU that YOU can give HIM?

And, is there any way you can do things or offer to do things with him/for him that sort of create opportunities and/or experiences that reassure you both?

One thing that has worked for me, for example, is that I know all the following to be true:

A. My wife loves going out and doing things, and especially loves being taken out or taken along to experience new things.

B. Prior to now, we hadn't done much together in years.

C. Her A was pretty much confined to an hour here, a minute there on the phone, all in the dark, in secret, or interacting in public but keeping their distance.

So as soon as I could I started taking her out and doing stuff with her in public as much as I could, because that was not only a 180 for me/us, and not only an important part of a good marriage (recreational companionship), but something I knew she liked that she couldn't experience with OM.

So I've been trying to give her things I know she wants (and that she got from her A), but also pouring on the stuff she wants but couldn't get from her A.

And in the context of doing all that I've been able to provide her with various reassurances I know she needs (that I'm a better person now, that I can meet her needs, that I can surprise her, that we can have fun and that I'm not looking for every opportunity to beat her over the head with her mistakes, that the future is not the past written in stone but a whole new adventure, etc.) And by doing that, she's much more open to providing me with what I want.

Make sense?