month 4

[Denver_2010]

Denver: Your post gave me a huge smile.....your exactly right im gonna work hard on not borrowing anymore problems. I spend way too much time and energy on what ifs...going to work hard on the right nows for a while.

I'm glad Carnac. It's such a simple thought, but so true.

[roughenough]

Hey Carnac, good to hear from you. Your positive attitude and encouraging posts are great! I might need to hijack some of your mojo, take care.

[Carnac]

Your exactly right Denver, its a catchy saying and a really simple concept....but i've done a poor job thus far of living it. I think it comes from being a worrier in general, but it is a huge goal of mine to live it.

[Carnac]

Lots to update....im going to try to put this into a form that makes the most sense. My WAW has been incredibly.....lets say cold...distant....trying to detach from me since this thing began in June. I have done my own thing, worked hard to try to make improvements in my life, seeing an IC weekly, worked on GAL and gave up some bad habits....all in all I can say undoubtedly that minus one hole in my life I am happier today than I have been in a long time. I know its only been 4 months so im sure the changes haven't 'stuck' yet...which is why I continue to work on me, but its easier to smile, to laugh and im looking forward to a relationship one day thats fun.

Obviously I want that to be with my wife...which brings us to Saturday. I coach my sons youth football team and we had a game on Saturday and afterward when we were walking to the parking lot I told her I had some tax papers I needed her to sign so I could file them on Monday. She walked over and my son was talking to a friend so it was just the two of us.....I get the stuff out for her to sign and she asks how im doing...(through this entire thing she's been cordial at best...always says how are you but really doesnt care about the answer.) I said I was good, but didnt elaborate and asked how she was and she said ok I guess (another aside....I haven't always followed DB to a T, but I have done a great job of not trying to tell her what i've done, am doing, but let her see it.)

Because she was weird about the way she answered I asked her what does ok i guess mean....i dont remember what she said but I ended up saying something about her avoiding me and not even being willing to talk and she replied that we had only seen one another in passing and that we had not had the opportunity etc....and I called her on it and told her that there had been plenty of opportunity if she had any interest in simply chatting. We talked for about another 30 minutes or so about various stuff.....good conversation, lots of laughs....she did mention at one point being uncomfortable or having anxiety or something and I asked why and we pursued that a bit....all in all this was a really good conversation and I left there feeling great. I spent all afternoon on Saturday convincing myself not to text her and was able to make it.....and on Sunday took my S11 to the fair with some friends and again wanted to call and invite her but convinced myself otherwise.....at the end of the day I was proud of myself and had ridden a pretty good high all weekend.

[Breakdown]

Sounds good Carnac! Great self control on the pursuit!

[Arsene]

I was wondering what you'd been up to mate. It seems like all of us are getting to open up the communication channels with our Ws all at the same time. I had mine 10 days ago, just after AT had his and now Rough is looking at his in a bit. I don't know if there is something that says that around 4 to 5 months this is to happen but if there is, we are all Text-book cases .

Glad you're well mate. You've been missed. I was actually thinking about you. Suppo and MrsD (both still MIA) today and was hoping the reason you weren't here is that things had improved in your sitches.

Take care mate.

[Carnac]

Of course, this is DB so we all know after the high comes the crash right? Monday was practice for my team and its at 'our' house...even though I dont live there. Ok, so S11 and I get to practice and when practice is over i've got some other forms from the accountant that I need to get her to sign and so I step inside for a few minutes and obviously get what i was expecting.....kinda cold...not much to say....not very friendly, buyers remorse.

Now a little background....my son will be 12 in two weeks and my WAW and I have allowed him to stay wherever he wants whenever he wants...i say that to say that i've kept a journal for the last 2 months and at the end of 30 days he had stayed with me 21 and last week at the end of 60 days he has stayed with me 41/60...i've been keeping up with this on the advice of an attorney in case she goes through with divorce....

Back to Monday...he walks inside the house just as she's finishing up signing the papers I had given her and i told him i was leaving and assumed he would probably stay with her because he had been with me since the previous Wednesday and he normally stays 3-4 days with me and then goes there for a day or two....anyway I told him i was leaving and was about to say bye to him when he told her bye and that he was going with me. She looked a little miffed, but didnt say anything to me and we left.

About a 1/2 hour later she sent me a text about our son's parent teacher conference this week and if he had brought a time home from school....he had told me a couple of days before that he forgot to bring it home and that his teacher was going to email us so I relayed that to her and told her i wasn't sure what email adress she had given the teacher at the beginning of the year the shared one or her private one but that if she didnt have an email from the teacher to let me know and i'd take care of it.

Well that set her off....a few minutes later another text saying that she didnt have an email and i told her that i'd email the teacher Tuesday morning and take care of it....the next text was pretty nasty and was talking about she didnt mind taking him to the conference b/c she had been to every other conference his whole life......I didnt respond at all because i wasn't going to give her the fight she was looking for.

15 minutes later she texts me again and it seems somewhat random b/c she simply states that she was upset tonight b/c she had made a big special dinner b/c he hadnt been there all weekend...
it really sounded like the middle of a conversation.....like she accidently sent it to me and not on purpose b/c we werent talking about her being upset at all.....we had been talking about p/t conferences and i didnt know she was upset until she sent that so I asked her if that was supposed to be sent to me.

She replied that it was for me and i simply replied that i appreciated her sharing her feelings with me and that i was sorry that she was upset. So then she sends another nasty text about she had made this and this and this and what was she supposed to do guess if he was gonna stay or not....(I would have liked to have advised her to simply ask him before she did those things and she would know but I thought better of it at the time)

At this point I was truly confused...i've always been pretty cautious about text and email because its incredibly hard to tell 'tone' in them....so I called her up....partly to honestly ask a question and partly to try to difuse this thing a bit before it got too far...when she answered I told her I simply needed some clarity on the text conversation as to whether she was chewing me out, or venting....but I was nice, light etc when i said it and was really expecting her to say venting and get off of the phone.

Turns out she said chewing me out a little she thought....started going into she didnt know why he was spending so much time with me in the last couple of weeks (thats why i gave the background above that its the same now as it was 30 days ago)....basically trying to say i was keeping him from her without saying i was keeping him from her. I was walking outside as we were talking b/c i didnt want him overhearing it and ended up getting in my truck and driving to my home...its only 2 miles from where im staying now....and asking her to come outside and go for a ride with me and we would talk.

We ended up talking for about an hour and a half.....i told her i'd never go back to a relationship like our old one....she told me she only had history to go on....I told her i wanted to start things slowly.....she told me she was happy and was scared she would lose that.....i told her i made mistakes etc...she told me she thinks she was depressed and is scared of going there again....I told her i wanted to get to know her and never bothered to ask her how she wanted to be loved.....she told me she should have spoken up more.....all in all it was a wonderful conversation but we haven't really talked since.

I did text her this morning...it was a question from the list that Lipton uses on the actors studio...what sound do you love and she texted back babies laughing... I had mentioned to her that i'd like to basically ask a bunch of questions to get to know her better...so i was happy she at least answered the question.

Ok, what now guys.....our talk was Monday.....no real interaction on Tuesday....a text this morning that she answered...where did I go right? Where did I go wrong? How do I continue on, but not be over eager, scare her off etc? Here are my thoughts.....Rome wasn't built in a day, patience is something I did/do struggle with so im trying not to bumrush her....I probably won't even send her another question off of the list until Friday because I want to talk to her daily but think she's not there yet. I also think that everything I heard from her during our conversation is that she's happy with things the way they are, but she never said she wouldnt want us back together, only that she wants to keep being happy and she's worried about the stresses that come with us being together. I agreed with all of that when she said it and validated everything I could. I even told her that I knew I had to overcome a history of telling her i would change but then not doing it.

Ok.....if you read all of that thank you very much I know its a book and i'll try to keep up more often so I dont have so much to add at once but it all happened pretty quickly.....

[Denver_2010]

We ended up talking for about an hour and a half.....i told her i'd never go back to a relationship like our old one....she told me she only had history to go on....I told her i wanted to start things slowly.....she told me she was happy and was scared she would lose that.....i told her i made mistakes etc...she told me she thinks she was depressed and is scared of going there again....I told her i wanted to get to know her and never bothered to ask her how she wanted to be loved.....she told me she should have spoken up more.....all in all it was a wonderful conversation but we haven't really talked since.

Wonderful conversation Carnac. Brought a tear to my eye. Seriously. It reminds me a few groundbreaking conversations that my W and I had along the way. You handled it nicely.

I don't think that you did anything wrong here at all. In fact, I think that you DB'd perfectly.

I did text her this morning...it was a question from the list that Lipton uses on the actors studio...what sound do you love and she texted back babies laughing... I had mentioned to her that i'd like to basically ask a bunch of questions to get to know her better...so i was happy she at least answered the question.

Again, a perfect contact. Not pushy or pursuing.

Ok, what now guys.....our talk was Monday.....no real interaction on Tuesday....a text this morning that she answered...where did I go right? Where did I go wrong? How do I continue on, but not be over eager, scare her off etc? Here are my thoughts.....Rome wasn't built in a day, patience is something I did/do struggle with so im trying not to bumrush her....I probably won't even send her another question off of the list until Friday because I want to talk to her daily but think she's not there yet. I also think that everything I heard from her during our conversation is that she's happy with things the way they are, but she never said she wouldnt want us back together, only that she wants to keep being happy and she's worried about the stresses that come with us being together. I agreed with all of that when she said it and validated everything I could. I even told her that I knew I had to overcome a history of telling her i would change but then not doing it.

Ok.....if you read all of that thank you very much I know its a book and i'll try to keep up more often so I dont have so much to add at once but it all happened pretty quickly.....

I think that you have done a fantastic job Carnac. Seriously, seriously. And something has changed here.

You just stated all of the things that you need to do... go slow, don't scare her away.

How do you get a squirrel to eat out of your hand? Don't scare the squirrel right? Get it to inch closer and closer to you.

I wouldn't initiate any contact for a few days. See if she does. You also might want to offer her a few days with your son. Let her know that you felt badly that she put all of that effort into the other night and that he hadn't stayed with her. Remind her that you value her above all else as the mother of your children. Women love this.

Keep ALL interactions fun and light... as much as possible. Don't try to have a R talk every time that you do talk.

I would wait a few days... the next time that the opportunity naturally arises, I'd go out on a limb and casually invite her to do something with you and your son.

By comparison... at the very beginning of my sitch, my W and I had very little contact. About 2 months into it I felt something change much like I do here. Contact started to increase and some of my W's anger had subsided. I was hanging out with SS. During a drop off, I told her that I had invited him to a see a movie the next week. I still remember, it was the Green Hornet. I just casually told her that WE would like it if she came with us. She told me that she'd think about it. A few days later she agreed to go. We went. Ate dinner beforehand. I just acted "as if" and did my best to be "okay" if that makes any sense. I just tried to have fun. After it was over and I got into my car I broke down and cried. It was hard. But it was the opening that I needed. W began to initiate contact a little more... next thing I knew, W wanted to have dinner to discuss the possibility of 'reconciling'.

It ended up taking me another 16 months or so to get to real piecing, but it was the start.

Remember the squirrel.

[Mrs D]

Oh I love that things are turning Carnac!! Take Denvers advice. Oh I love this!! So glad that I decided to log on today just to see how everyone was. I have big huge smiles for you right now Carnac!! YAY!!

[Carnac]

Denver: I was hoping you would chime in, we did have a little more interaction tonight. I knew I would see her tonight at church and didnt know if she would have buyers remorse or what but we had a nice easy interaction, just a little chit chat and niceties, but when we were parting in the parking lot we hugged and i simply said to her that i really enjoyed talking to her the other night.....and...wait for it....she said me too and smiled.

LOL holy crap you talk about being on cloud nine...I couldnt feel better right now, but im going to continue along the same path of working on myself, smiling, being nice and keeping things light until she wants to talk about more.