Your main goal is to present a stark contrast to the OW. You are the prize. This means making your home warm, cozy, and inviting. When your W moves out to the 'hood, she will reflect on those times and the wheels will start to churn inside her noggin. Of course, she may not tell you this lest she, gasps!, give you any glimmer of hope.
Sit very still and watch the squirrel scurry about here and there.
You would want to make your home environment Mitford cozy. Haven't you read any of the Mitford series by Jan Karon? Wonderful reading!
Wonka, my best friend through all this mess calls my W a "squirrel who will chase anything." Funny you use that term.
I made us both green smoothies just now, and I've chosen to work up here in our office for a while today on my entrepreneurial project. We're not really saying anything to each other, but it's not as tense as it was the last time we both tried working in the same room. In a little while, I will go downstairs and clean the house, something that needs to be done and I know she appreciates. And if she does plan to be here for dinner tonight, I'll be sure it's as warm and inviting as it can possibly be.
That's all I can do, as she continues to text the OW how much she loves her...
Me: 46 Her: 41 M: 5.5 yrs / S: 20, 18 3/26 W and I meet OW BD: 5/2/2015, she takes off ring W goes to stay with OW 6/26 NC: 9/5 Both moved out: 10/16 I take off my ring and feel... healed: 10/19
Mutual friend tells me W is acting like a teenager with a massive crush. The OM is a incubus and W seems to be like a cutter who keeps going back for more and more because she likes the pain and/or cant help it.
Seems about right. One day we can hope they see all that we have done and our real value while OW/OM just used them. If not maybe we are better off anyway.
Accept what is, let go of what was, and have faith in what will be
Yeeesh... I went to put some trash in the recycling bin just now, and I saw that while beginning to pack and purge yesterday, she had tossed a bunch of my books, including my high school yearbook, in there!
I knew it wasn't intentional, so I approached her about it when she came home - not with anger, but with concern. She clearly felt bad about it, but it continues to point to how she's just not right in the head these days. I guess this gives me some kind of glimmer of hope, that she's not right in the head and this too shall pass... but it also means maybe I need to be around while she's throwing stuff out!
Except she's said three times now how bad she feels about having done that. So maybe she'll be more careful going forward.
Strange day here, both of us in the house almost the whole time, working together in the office kind of like the "old days."
It got me thinking, though... yes, like the old days. So what was wrong with the old days? What should we have done differently?
We'd be in this office, and we'd work, and maybe we didn't interact enough, take enough breaks, get enough space. We used to always grab and kiss each other spontaneously, maybe once or twice a day. Now that I know touch is her love language, maybe I didn't do it enough?
Nothing we could do about it today to turn back the clock or change our course towards what I see as a disaster for both of us. I don't think there was anything about today that was warmly nostalgic, unfortunately. Maybe there will be if we share a little wine after dinner, if she agrees to quit working. I suspect she isn't going to the OW's at all tonight, much less going to sleep there, since she's not slept here in at least a week.
I wonder if the seeds I planted this week are growing, or if she's just forcing them down deep into places of her psyche she never visits. I wonder, but all I can do is continue to give her to God.
Me: 46 Her: 41 M: 5.5 yrs / S: 20, 18 3/26 W and I meet OW BD: 5/2/2015, she takes off ring W goes to stay with OW 6/26 NC: 9/5 Both moved out: 10/16 I take off my ring and feel... healed: 10/19
Okay... somewhat off topic question, but would like some input from the group...
Last August, my W and I took a month long vacation in her homeland of Albania. It's such an amazing place, so many places still stuck way back in time, a vastly different culture than ours. During 50 years of communist rule, the country was also officially atheist... so all the churches were shut down. When communism fell in the early 90's they all opened again... there are so many of them, so many different sizes and styles, mostly Greek Orthodox.
While we were there, we embarked on a project. She's a great photographer, and I'm a writer. So we decided we were going to do a photo book with stories about as many churches as we could visit during that month. We probably got to as many as 30 of them, and at each place, we'd find a local villager who could tell us the story of the church, who also maybe had a key to let us in, all of that. My W would take the photos, and I would record their stories, while she translated.
Well, needless to say, we hit the real estate business running when we got home, and this project has been on the back burner ever since. I still want to complete it, but beyond that, I think it has the potential to bring the two of us to a place that the OW simply cannot go - to a warm and special time we shared, talking about churches and God and faith, and imagining this project taking shape.
I guess my question is about timing: I was listening to one of the interviews yesterday and wrote my piece. If I send it to her now and ask her to choose accompanying photos and work on a page layout, while we're in the midst of "separating," would it come across as a ploy? Should I maybe wait until we ARE separated for a little bit, and I've written stories for several churches, and then present her with the idea - maybe after "real life" settles in a bit with the OW (who, by the way, had no idea when we met her where Albania even is on the map)?
Just looking for some feedback. This idea came to me today, again not as a ploy, but perhaps as an opportunity - as God gently reminding me that His time is the right time, we do indeed have something she can never share with the OW, and working on that project might rekindle some emotions and remind her of a deeper love.
The question is... when?
Me: 46 Her: 41 M: 5.5 yrs / S: 20, 18 3/26 W and I meet OW BD: 5/2/2015, she takes off ring W goes to stay with OW 6/26 NC: 9/5 Both moved out: 10/16 I take off my ring and feel... healed: 10/19
Timing is everything ... I know you are in the right spot and your heart is in the right place ... but to soon, this would add pressure, you just planted all those choice seeds and in my head you are stomping all over em with this one.
Now if you do this on your own, off to the side ... keep it a TOP secret ... let the A run its course, lets think best case scenario and W gets her wits about her again .. you two start to reconnect and she finally admits her mistakes, shows remorse and you begin piecing ... what a wonderful gift for a birthday/Christmas ... rough drafts that show you were busy completing a project you started with her during the worst of times.
To toss this at her now ... honestly IMO .. to much ... she has alot on her plate she needs to finish first.
Cali, I think you're absolutely right about this. Thanks for the confirmation. I will work on it without telling her, and this would be something nice to present around Christmastime, you're right...
My kids and one of my nephews came over for dinner tonight. We very naturally and organically got around to the topic of thinking about our deathbeds, what God wants from us in our lives, His will, etc... seriously, no agenda. It just happened. She couldn't stay for long, went upstairs to start packing again.
I will pray a few extra prayers for her tonight...
Me: 46 Her: 41 M: 5.5 yrs / S: 20, 18 3/26 W and I meet OW BD: 5/2/2015, she takes off ring W goes to stay with OW 6/26 NC: 9/5 Both moved out: 10/16 I take off my ring and feel... healed: 10/19
Tonight, she was here. Home. We decided to go out and get a Redbox movie, some story about real estate and a very long term couple. It was okay. What was notable was that we watched the movie together on the couch like we have a thousand times before. I took one of the pillows and perched it between her legs, no protest as I rested my head there. She touched me a few times. When it was over, she gave me a kind of cold "hug" goodnight and started up the stairs...then came back down and gave me another, with a kiss on the cheek.
Not that any of this means anything to her now. But it might. On the way to get the movie, I made a crack that Wonka would slap me for: "Your mistress must be busy tonight." She said back: "I needed a break."
Hmmm.
And on the way back home with the DVD, I can't even remember what the comment was I made about my career. But whatever it was, it compelled her to grab my thigh and squeeze it, for minutes at least.
After the movie and our "goodnights" to each other, I decided to make her coffee for the morning, so she won't have to. We have plans to see a property in the early afternoon, and then, she will be off to her OW and I will be off to giving her to God. Which is hard, but clearly the only way.
I miss her. She misses something of me. But is that enough?
Me: 46 Her: 41 M: 5.5 yrs / S: 20, 18 3/26 W and I meet OW BD: 5/2/2015, she takes off ring W goes to stay with OW 6/26 NC: 9/5 Both moved out: 10/16 I take off my ring and feel... healed: 10/19
Big hug Dif. I'm sure it's hard to be in the same house with your W but you're doing well. Maybe less Wonka-slap-worthy comments, but it sounds like it went over well. I'd be tempted to get a dig in there too and surely have with mine.
Keep doing your work, and DB'ing, I have a feeling that your seeds are still in there.
PP
M 39 W 36 T5 M3 BD - 1/15 Separated - Same Day Served 9/15 D finalized 6/17
Thanks, PP. It is hard, but there are stretches when she's not here and almost full time at the OW's house, and those are hard in a different way.
She's given indications to me that this thing with the OW isn't all that serious. But she gives the exact opposite impression to the OW. (Having read some texts, I know this.) Hard to know where the truth really lies, and it's just clear to me that here and now, in the midst of the A, I cannot compete. They consider each other life partners already, or at least that's what the texts indicate. This is the sort of thing that gets me down when she's not here. When she is, it's the mixed messages that she doesn't even know she's delivering. It's the talks that often morph into arguments. It's her being here but her mind and heart being somewhere else. That's why last night, just watching a movie together, was the most pleasant time we've had together in a long time. Short-lived and didn't mean anything to her, I'm sure. Other than it may have planted a little seed that will remind her of our once calm and peaceful life together.
Patience... I know. It's a long, long road.
Me: 46 Her: 41 M: 5.5 yrs / S: 20, 18 3/26 W and I meet OW BD: 5/2/2015, she takes off ring W goes to stay with OW 6/26 NC: 9/5 Both moved out: 10/16 I take off my ring and feel... healed: 10/19
