Just getting started piecing it back

[grasshopper]

Ok, I am not here every day so I missed a lot it seems. I would like to comment on a lot of what you have been saying and what others have said to you. I will quote from and respond to the posts of the last couple days...

1) Not to be an a$$ about it, but I would really, really like to have the sitch you have, as opposed to say, the one I currently have.

Point being, value what you have, which is more than a lot of people here. You have reason to hope, and some of that reason is actually coming from your wife, something that is even more rare.

I have to admit, that I sometimes wonder if I want to save this with the way she is toward me, but on the flip of the coin, I know that our marriage was great at one time and it can be again. I know that divorce will be alot tougher than this so I know I want the marriage, but I do have some mixed emotions right now that I need to get through.

Yep, we ALL feel this way.

I will address this now, although this is not the statement of yours that brought it to mind. There is a concept in the book called The Four Agreements (read it if you have not) that goes something like (HEAVY paraphrasing here); People that "get it" don't ever have to "get through" anything.

The point being that if you understand that EVERYTHING in life, EVERY situation we face has intrinsic value, you don't ever have to feel like you're simply getting through days. You learn to absorb the good, bad and ugly of the day and learn from ALL of it.

Dealing with the bad stuff as if it's something merely to "get through" denies the value it has, and as I think we all know, you learn more from failing than you do from success. The problem is that it usually takes hindsight to gain insight from our failures/pain because we are usually so wrapped up in the depth of our experience to look at what's happening from any kind of intelligent perspective (BTW, I think this is what Xue was talking about in a later post). Learn to see the value in the bad times and you will learn to see ALL of life, not just the highlights. VERY hard to do, but even if you manage to do it every once in awhile, IN THE MOMENT, not months later, you'll be a better man for it.

I just wanted to get this off my chest and see if I done the right thing tonight...
W usually picks son up at my work after school, but today I had some running to do so I tried to call and tell her I would have him at home when she got there. She was on the phone talking to who I think to be OM. She would not answer phone. I seen her on way to house and flaged her told her I had son and I would take him to house.

this is part if I wonder if I did right.

She pulled in drive behind us, I waited for her to get out of car. I gave her peck on lips and she let me. I went into house with her to pick up my mail. I hugged her, she hugged back and gave me a kiss on cheek. I then said see you later and left.

Overall, I think you did great, considering I think what you were worried about was how you reacted to your suspicion that she was talking to OM. In that respect you get an A. You just let it go. As for how you interacted with her, well, I am a little concerned that you push the physical stuff too much. You know she's not really "there" yet. I may hold back a little on that and let her come to you.

At the end of the conversation I told her that some of the books I was reading said not to say ILY to her because it could make her uncomfortable. I asked if this was the case and she said sometimes it does and some times it doesn't. So now I think that I should not say it, but I'm not sure if she wants me to or not. Any advice?

As Xue said later on, DO NOT TALK STRATEGY WITH HER ANYMORE. She needs to SEE and FEEL your changes and the more you talk about books, websites and what you're TRYING to do, the more she may think "Hmmm, it SEEMS like xxxx has changed about him but I wonder if it's just something he read in a book or heard about online and isn't REALLY something he's going to stick with?"

Like Xue said, just do it, don't talk about doing it or else it will end up looking and sounding like BS.

Also, I hear WAY too much about what SHE may or may not want you to do. This is IN NO WAY ABOUT figuring our specific things she wants you to do RIGHT NOW. Right now, what she wants, as you've lamented over, changes from day to day, hour to hour. That's why YOU have to be the level headed one and understand that it's what YOU want that matters, and NOT what you want simply from her, but what you want for yourself. It's really hard to eliminate the "WWWT" (what would wifey think) from everything you do because you've spent YEARS learning otherwise but you need to work FAST to unlearn it.

Sure, in then end, we read books like Five Love Languages and Mars/Venus to try to understand where we went wrong in expressing our love to them, but for now, the way things are, you have to temper some of that with the reality that you don't want to be in more of an R than she is. and that is a direct (albeit probably mangled somewhat) quote from OT, one of my main mentors in all this.

That means you don't want to go around kissing her, hugging her, saying ILY to her when she isn't doing the same to/for you of her own free will and not just as a response to you. If you do that, it's perceived as pressure and you don't want that.

Be the kind of person she wants to hear it from first. I suspect once enough time passes, that part will take care of itself.

Amen. I agree 100%.

I am anxious to see my wife today when she picks up son. I am going to be myself for a change today and not expect some end result of something I am trying to accomplish with her.

If you can really do this, you are well on your way. It's what's required of you right now, and what I believe will help you get what you want. The catch 22 is that often in our sitches we have to give up wanting/expecting/hoping that we'll get there before we truly start do actually make progress. More precisely, we don't ever really give up hope but we learn to abandon expectation. Your statement here exemplifies that.

My wife is back to not wearing her wedding rings. I rubbed her fingure and told her that I was trying really hard to change. She kissed me and told me she would see me later.

STOP THIS CRAP! Sorry to be harsh but you HAVE TO STOP being a puppy dog. Again, the more you TELL her you're trying to change, the less she probably believes it. Just do it. I know it's REALLY hard because you want immediate gratification but you can't have it, not now. You HAVE to realize that for this to work, you have to start making personal changes that were, yes, BORN of this experience but in the end, have NOTHING to do with it. What I mean is that you keep relating EVERYTHING you're doing back to her and the sitch and she sees that. It's pressure on her. She sees you changing your whole life around for her and how do you think that makes her feel when she thinks it's entirely possible she'll be out of your life in a week, month or year from now? If it were me, and I wasn't sure I wanted to be with someone, them doing all this stuff would scare me. It would raise the stakes and for some people, especially people prone to run anyway, you don't want to do that.

That's why the advice to just be yourself, enjoy life again and BE FUN is so good. LOWER the stakes. TAKE PRESSRE off her, AND yourself by just changing that which you know needs to be changed simply for it's own sake, not her. If you do that, and get back to your "center", she will be able to see the REAL you that she will be missing if she chooses to go through with a D, and hopefully THAT will be the right kind of pressure you want to put on her.

My question is... How does a WAW go from 2 weeks ago telling me she loves me and wants to spend the rest of her life with me to being somewhat cold and not wear wedding rings now?

All I can say is that if you don't understand this, you need to read more threads here. Almost EVERY WAS does this. It's THEIR roller coaster. They get close and then get scared, ESPECIALLY when their closeness triggers BIG changes in us. When we react to them pulling close by grabbing on for dear life, it must scare the hell out of them. Remember, most WASs feel like they've been trapped in a bad place for a long time. Reminding them of the cage is not really the best thing to do.

When she gets close, respond in kind but be the one who lets go first. Be the one who hangs up first. Be the one who doesn't call.

Last night I called to talk to kids and when I finished talking to them we just hung up. My wife called me back a little while later and we just talked, no R talk just talk. I got to where I was going and I said that if she wanted to talk more, she could call me later.

I know your next sentence kinda negates what I am about to say but WTH. You need to stop being so available. Stop telling her she can call you. She knows that. What she hears is "Please God, call me because I can't live another minute without hearing your voice..."

That is sexy and desirable in a committed, loving R, but you are not there yet and so it may come off as desperate and clingy. Ease off...a lot. Let her initiate this stuff. Let her do it because she sees you being a different man, even if it's only for the few minutes when you drop S off.

Trust me, she KNOWS you were trying to call when she was on the other line a day or so ago. She EXPECTED you to act like an a$$ and you didn't. THAT kind of thing raises eyebrows, not the constant begging...er...telling her she can call you.

I wanted to call her so bad around 9 because she usually goes to bed around this time. I held back, my phone rang twice after 9 and I hoped it was her but neither call was. I had given up on her. Sometime after 10 my phone rang and I didn't think it would be her but it was. We talked for a while and I think she enjoyed the conversation.

This experience can be a metaphor for how this whole thing works. What we have been telling you is to ease up on the pressure, abandon the expectations, not to stop trying or give up hope. What happened here? Ok, you wanted to call her but you didn't think it was right/necessary. You
STOPPED yourself from doing something that would not have positivly affected your sitch. Then you built expectations. You held onto them but eventually gave them up. You SAY you gave up on HER but in reality, you did a much more healthy thing and gave up the expectation that do what you want her to do. What happened when you did that? Of course SHE called and because you didn't have any pre-concieved expectations about it, things went fine. You had a good, comfortable conversation.

Apply this one event to your overall sitch. Learn to just live your life. Give up your expectations about what she may or may not do. Let HER participate in this without trying to manipulate everything she does. She'll never think it was her idea to do it if you are constantly trying to pull her strings.

Let her come to you and come without the burden of your expectation and then let her walk away without the chains of your need holding her down. Then the next time she gets a wild hair up her a$$ to call you, visit you or just give you a hug, she won't think "If I do that, he'll think it means something I'm not sure it does yet...so I'll hold off...or not do it at all."

Overall, you're doing fine. You are starting to get it. Just really work on not letting what happens today, RIGHT NOW, influence you so much in your overall plan. Don't let today's worries get you off track.

GH