Thoughtful thread. Interesting the ups and downs we go through, isn't it? You said:
-------------------------------------------------------- So, here I am. Moving ahead. "Dating" my wife. It's really fun. It's fresh. The distance helps build the respect thing back up. It's that detachment thingy again. Works every time. ---------------------------------------------------------
and I got a jolt of encouragement.
Dating my H was how I put myself in the picture. While gripped with lust the young and buxom my H became an ogler -- and I felt overlooked, worn out and cast off.
So a 180 for me was to shed my comfy fleece jammies and pull on a tight, short skirt with heels. Apply lipgloss in matching crimson. And ask him out to a comedy club.
He was surly and suspicious at first. But hey, he's totally lured by live comedy -- we hadn't gone to a club in years --and I guess I was better than nothing. So we had our "first" date.
He couldn't have cared less if I saw him openly surveying babes at the club. After all, we didn't live together. He'd moved out, declaring his intention to be free, so he owed me nothing.
But guess what? We found ourselves laughing together. It was a start. Of course, when I tried to sit next to him he moved away, so I had to back way off.
Wounded. Without Michele and you guys on the BB I would NEVER have had the patience or faith to ask him out again, to notice the laugh, overlook the discomfort and face the rejection.
But with DR encouragement, I kept asking him out. Oddly enough he kept agreeing, and we seem to be ending up boyfriend and girlfriend again, many months later. So far, that's where we stand. Now you could call him my live-in boyfriend -- don't tell Mom (ha ha)!
Early in this dating sequence my H showed no enthusiasm. Gosh, if we were in a college dorm or a movie, you'd say I was a hopelessly smitten fool and he was biding his time till "the real one" came along. You KNOW I felt foolish and hopeless cuz I wrote about it here, right? Questioned my sanity lots of times.
I'm a bit stunned, but it does appear that being creative and ACTING LIKE a clever, hair-tossing, ATTRACTED, and may I say perfumed-in-the-right-places, female not only boosted my morale but also intrigued my H, maybe even "lured" him back -- but how do I "keep him"? Is this artificial? Can I be a babe 24/7?
Under my bravado I was miserably insecure -- I had lost my true love and my security. But you know what? I'm finding that after months and months of pretending to be softer, acting like I'm patient, lightening up, and not reacting angrily UNDER ANY CIRCUMSTANCE, I am actually BECOMING softer, lighter, more even-tempered.
Not to say I became a hunk-magnet exactly, but my H would be a fool to miss that my "new look" is attracting "new looks" -- and you can see he thinks of me as quite a good catch, again. Like he did in our early days. Wowie!
We're getting our "early day feelings" back.
I plan on not sabotaging this. I don't exactly know HOW yet. But I'll keep listening and watching you guys for techniques, and sharing mine with you, and we'll be building warm quilts for ourselves, piece at a time.
(To cover our slinkiness?)
Guess I'm kind of riffing -- but the idea of dating is what got me started, and I wanted to share my excitement that it seems to be what is bringing us together, too. I'm jazzed. Out of outfits, but hopeful.
