Wow, Lin - I can't believe how similar we sound! It's so very helpful to have you helping and supporting me. Thank you.
I'm having a really hard day again, and am getting through it. Still have not totally gotten into my work but am working on it. I know I'll see him tomorrow, so I just keeping looking forward to that and thinking about how I need to act around him and improve myself.
I feel EXACTLY the same way you did about tracking him, needing to know where he's at, etc. I have learned from others on this board that I AM controlling, and I hate it. I want to be better. I know I need to work on this. And I know that last time I stopped snooping it really helped, so I just need to accept that I now know that he's going to be spending time with her again, and I've got to just let him do what he needs to do right now and work on bettering me so that I'm a better person for him to come back to.
As far as our trip to his parents, I just don't know... The last conversation I had with him about it was not the one that he said we could still go. It was the one where he said he thought it was more important to get our ducks in a row with the business. I asked if we did that if we could still go, and he said we'd talk about it later, and that's how we last left it...
Also, I always make all the travel arrangements, so I do need to cancel them if need be (he would have no clue...). I could tell him how to do it, but that wouldn't probably make any sense... I also was the one to call his parents to schedule this, and he would assume that I would be the one to call them to cancel. So if I don't and they don't hear from us, they'll be calling ME a few days or so before our trip, not him. So then what do I do???
And the difficulty with the Vegas trip is that if I'm going to have a friend go with me I would need for that person to make a reservation soon! I can't wait until the last minute... Maybe I should just go by myself if he doesn't want to go???
Your last paragraph really hits home. I think he just came home a few weeks ago out of pressure from me and from himself to "give us a shot" but that he wasn't really ready to do that. I believe that if his heart is truly into fixing us, he will be more open to getting some type of help, whatever that might be. Right now, he's too wrapped up into her and upset with me and us to be in the place. I just have to wait until he is. And the more I try to get him to do things to fix us, if he just does them out of pressure or obligation, the results are not going to be good.
My problem is just patience. I'm NOT a very patient person. I want things, and I want them NOW - part of my controlling nature I guess. That's probably why I reason with him to death when we talk - because if he doesn't say what I want to hear I think if I just say it a different way or explain myself or my thoughts or the situation a little bit better he will see it my way, and I'll get my way! That's not fair. Even if I don't agree with what he says, I just need to learn to accept it.
The hard part is that since he doesn't talk much when we talk about our R, I never really understand what he's thinking or, more importantly, WHY he is thinking what he is thinking. To that end, I guess I feel like I need to constantly explain why I think the way I do "just in case" he hadn't thought of it that way or whatnot. Does that make sense?
The main thing I need to do with our communication is obviously work on my poor style but in addition to that figure out how to draw him out to talk just as much as I do. I know that's way down the line, but it's really important that we're able to have a 2-sided conversation somehow that we both benefit from. As I said, it helps me so very much to have you give me some feedback and things to think about - he's just not able to do that. He tells me I back him into a corner, I debate him, I twist his words around, but he can't tell me what I do that makes him feel that way, so I don't know how to improve... I will work on the things you talked about you did.
Any other tidbits of advice to help me with my patience during this long journey ahead of me?
