Sorry I didn't see your post earlier. I have nearly dropped off the boards. I check them every now and again. But I don't feel the need to be on them so much anymore...
But since you asked what it's like seeing your estranged H after a year, and I've been-there-done-that, I thought I'd drop a line.
It's wierd.
I'm a reserved person generally, so when I saw my H for the first time after nearly a year, not knowing where I stood with him, it was a "cool" meeting. But things warmed up. I did not bring up anything about us until just before he left. I knew I had to ask where the D papers were that he said he was going to have sent the last time I'd seen him. But, figuring it could be bad news, and I might not take it well, I waited until he was practically out the door to bring it up.
I've only seen him three times in the last three years. We communicate by phone and email. Until recently I have not confronted any issues with him, not wanting to spend what little communication we had on unpleasant topics. That may sound strange at first. But honestly, what can we solve in week long visit once a year, or a few emails or phone calls a month? What would bringing up issues do but train him that communication with me is unpleasant, so better not to even initiate it?
Something wonderful has happened between my H and I the last couple months. H now calls me after a bad day, just to talk to someone comforting. That didn't happen before the bomb. He calls in the middle of the week for no reason. He has been more verbally affectionate than ever and I am more confident about addressing issues when it's necessary. I attribute this to three things...first, when we had very limited communications, I did not waste them trying to solve issues, instead I learned to speak his love language (WOA). But that in itself did not lead straight to more communications-what I wanted. The second thing I attribute this better place to, is that when I had regained enough self-confidence, I told H that it wouldn't be the end of the world if we went our separate ways...I gave us both spoken permission to move on. I waited to do that until I was sure I meant. And his reaction was to start calling everyweekend and sometimes during the weekdays (up from one call a month or less). And third, I'm begining to see that I have nothing to lose by bringing up the important issues, now that we have much more communication time. Because I've honestly given us both permission to move on, I'm not operating under the fear that he's going to leave. If he is going to he will. If we don't deal with the deal breakers, one of us will eventually leave anyway. But, dealing with those hard issues is not easy or pleasant. So every time you bring up the issue you are causing discomfort in a way. You need to be sure that you have built up a nice cushion of comfort in your R before you start sprinkling in the discomfort of those necessary discussions.
It's like that one psychologist's analogy of the bank account. Everytime you do something that stimulates pleasure for your spouse, you make a deposit in the bank account. Everytime you do something that stimulates discomfort, even if it's as justified as taking time out for yourself, or bringing up a difficult issue, you make a withdrawal. Withdrawals are sometimes necessary, but first build up a nice balance so you have something to fall back on when the time comes.
I can't believe how long I went on about that. I guess if you wanted to skip all that I could have just said...go to the Bahamas for God sake, because they're the Bahamas. Go have a good time with your H. You probably won't be there for long, so don't bring up any issues unless you absolutely have to. Come back home with some good memories of H to start to balance out the bad ones. Maybe that will lead to more communication and more good visits with H. Soon enough, once you have more time to communicate, you can start dealing with the necessary, hard issues.
I'm sure it's not true for everyone, but I think the distance has saved my M. It's given me the space to ride my roller coaster, be angry, without having all those "slip ups" in front of the spouse. The down side is, I will now have to learn how to have a "real time" R where my H DOES see my ups and downs. Boy, that's another story. And we have been separated now for over two and a half years. If we were able to, we probably would be living together by now. But still, that's a long time, and if anyone had told me after three weeks of separation that it would go on this long...well, I'm just glad they didn't. Honestly, the only reason I never filed was because being divorced wouldn't have made my life any easier. It wouldn't have brought me more money or help with S4. So, because the alternatives didn't look any better than the status quo I stuck it out, and so far, I'm happy about that.
