Suddenly, a small ray of hope

[built4speed]

Hi, there, sorry I disappeared, but it became obvious that W was, if not monitoring my posts, at least aware of them, so I didn't feel comfortable posting here. I don't know if I will need to drop off again, but if I do you'll know why.

I'm posting today because I've had a slight shift in sitch. As you recall:
Me - 46
W 44
Married 19 years
D13, S11, S9
Bomb Aug 05
Attys involved July 06 - I quit DBing
I still live in the house, she sleeps in one of the kid's rooms - I have been gradually detaching
First collaborative atty meeting with all four of us - today

W called off the meeting. She got a job offer two weeks ago which will be very good money. I was out of the country all last week. W called several times with questions like am I going to be reasonable about the negotiations, etc. I basically told her I could answer specific questions, but not general "are you going to be an a-hole"-type queries. Eventually I asked her if she had a specific quesiton and she didn't so I just blew her off, (it was 2am my time) and told her I would not be negotiating without my atty. I couldn't figure out why she was calling so much.

So yesterday she says she wants to work on the marriage! I have begged her to do that from the beginning, and she never has agreed. I asked her a couple times in the last two months if there was any chance we could work this out, and she always said no chance. Zero. But now she is feeling like it is too much change for her, with the new job, me leaving, and the trauma on the kids all at once.

Basically what happen was:
I have been detaching and reducing my emotional support of her, and she commented she really missed my friendship.
She got a job which was a huge issue between us. She felt I "forced" her to quit to stay home with the kids. She now thinks it was probably the right thing to do, but faults me for not approaching her the right way with it (I plead guilty). She is finally able to get over that now that she has a new job.
I was gone all last week, and she says she really missed me. And I know why she kept calling: It gave her a taste of her future without me.
The kids are starting to show signs of emotional trauma due to the pending D. I haven't even left, but she can really see the impact on them of just the idea of me leaving.
She also realized she needs to be in an R to work out her big isues, and I'm availabe (and actually very good at helping her). She figured out that by never trying to work us out, she will have the same troubles next time.

Based on all of this, she called off the atty meeting today, and agreed to go to a marriage class at church. She says she will give it until the 10 weeks of that are up before making any new decisions.

So I guess that is the good news. I'm still letting it all soak in. I not really getting my hopes up, because it is trivially easy to reverse course again. I can understand why it is too much change for her at once. But I fear that once she is esabished in her new job, she will again want the D.

I really haven't changed anything major in a while. I worked out the big issues she had over two years ago, and stopped DBing in July. So all I have done is detach and wait. I had no expectation that anything good would happen (it wasn't on purpose, the sitch just had no hope). We were fully planning to finish the M off in the next two months. So I can't say any active DBing on my part was responsbile for this. I suppose you could argue I was passively following some of the techniques (GAL, and not talking about the R - there was nothing to talk about). But I wan't going out of my way to be supportive, nice, non-arguementative, or loving. I just planned to move ahead and let the chips fall. I seriously did not expect her to ever say she would work on it. And, to be honest, I'm not convinced she will really try all that hard. But I might be wrong.