Need help saving my family - continued

[nit84]

The problem with your argument about closeness lacks one thing. Your WAW needs to be on board with that mindset.

Unfortunately, I don't want to be negative but she is a WAW and in no way shape or form is she thinking I want to be close with my LBH.

In her mind she can't get far enough away from you. That is the start of her journey, you must let her complete that journey on her own terms. You have no idea what those terms are so don't even try to think you do. It will only lead to expectations and then to disappointment. Been There done that. Set me personally back from my own journey probably about a week.

Again, I am totally supportive of you and want you to have the ending YOU desire what ever that may be.

By allowing her to see for herself the consequences of being a WAW it will then maybe turn into the absence makes the heart grow fonder deal. You can not try and force that on to her. It will lead to more resentment and make your goal unattainable.

Somebody wrote in response to one of my posts, I apologize to the author for not remembering who it was, It is not up to us as LBH to teach our WAW a lesson or to punish them. Life will do that.

Have the patience to let that happen. In the mean time work on yourself. It will pay great dividends down the road one way or the other. This is about YOU right now. Make yourself proud of YOU. If you can do this it will be seen by others and your WAW and things will start to happen in your favor!!

[Scorp7]

Then invite her along to something you or you and the kids are doing. If she comes, great. If not, who cares? You were going to have fun anyway.

I may try that, I haven't actually done that yet. I likely will take the kids swimming this weekend so I may invite her to come along.

[Scorp7]

The problem with your argument about closeness lacks one thing. Your WAW needs to be on board with that mindset.

Unfortunately, I don't want to be negative but she is a WAW and in no way shape or form is she thinking I want to be close with my LBH.

In her mind she can't get far enough away from you. That is the start of her journey, you must let her complete that journey on her own terms. You have no idea what those terms are so don't even try to think you do. It will only lead to expectations and then to disappointment. Been There done that. Set me personally back from my own journey probably about a week.

Again, I am totally supportive of you and want you to have the ending YOU desire what ever that may be.

By allowing her to see for herself the consequences of being a WAW it will then maybe turn into the absence makes the heart grow fonder deal. You can not try and force that on to her. It will lead to more resentment and make your goal unattainable.

Somebody wrote in response to one of my posts, I apologize to the author for not remembering who it was, It is not up to us as LBH to teach our WAW a lesson or to punish them. Life will do that.

Have the patience to let that happen. In the mean time work on yourself. It will pay great dividends down the road one way or the other. This is about YOU right now. Make yourself proud of YOU. If you can do this it will be seen by others and your WAW and things will start to happen in your favor!!

You're right. I don't think I could teach her anything, she's a very smart woman generally and I'm the last person that she would want to be lectured by right now. I do think that maybe she's starting to realize that the grass isn't greener on the other side like she thought. She wants to sell our dream home we built only a year and a half ago, sell out of our business etc, but all of those things can take a LONG time. She wants the money to buy a new home in the same town as her parents so in the mean time she's living with them. I think that has got to be hard for her, she never got along very well with her parents before.

I love her unconditionally and I want to do everything I can for her and our kids but right now perhaps the best thing I can do is nothing. I'll continue to work on myself and be the best Dad I can be. I likely will record the music video for her and the kids in case there is an opportunity to give it to her down the road but I'll hold off giving that to her for a while.

[Scorp7]

I did perhaps have a very SMALL positive sign from my W tonight. I was talking to our oldest D on the phone and my wife told her to tell me (I could hear her clearly in the background) about this new food I should try that she found, she thought it was something I would really like.

Now, I know this is a SMALL thing but considering the last personal gesture she made to me was pretty much on my birthday last November when she sent me a birthday card from our kids, a cake and wished me a happy birthday. There have been other nice gestures from her here and there so each one feels great. If I stay patient and continue to do what I'm doing maybe the small gestures will turn into more.

[Scorp7]

Oh, one last thing I should mention. A mutual friend told me my W has been posting some very out of character things on her FB page. Tonight I guess she posted a shared picture that read something along the lines of "Therapy is nice but sometimes screaming F**k for ten seconds is a lot cheaper and quicker".

That is TOTALLY out of character for how she's been in the past. She would never have posted anything like that in the past.

[Barrybran]

Disregard it. It won't do you any good thinking about things like that.

[nit84]

I agree with Barry, Remember she might look and sound like your W but she is not right now and will act completely opposite of your expectations. It has been said that a WAS is going to act as if aliens have taken control of their body.

Patience my friend!!

Keep detaching and GAL. This will help with the overthinking.

[Scorp7]

I'm going to be volunteering at my oldest daughters school, helping out in her classroom a few times a month so that will be awesome.

I've had to learn new levels of patience I never thought were possible for me. It's a daily struggle but I'm getting there.

I did think it was an interesting idea to invite my W to come to one of the activities with our kids. I don't know that she would accept at this point but the offer might be worth making.

[trc2009]

Scorp, you know my sitch w/ my W on Facebook. You can't pay any mind to that stuff regardless of how much you'd like to read into it. I know, easier said than done. My W posts videos of songs (she's never done that in our 6 years together) the last few weeks. Most of them w/ some sort of "love lyrics." It's stuff like that which will drive you crazy.

And small gestures of kindness are what matter. It does show that they're at least thinking about you in a non-negative light. That's better than not thinking about you at all or thinking about you in a negative light.

[Scorp7]

Totally agree trc, the FB stuff isn't good to pay much attention to but I guess in my sitch where we have so little contact it's hard not to just to feel connected in some way.

Every small gesture of kindness has been like a breath of fresh air. It's hard not to get too excited about those things but I know I need to try to stay on an even keel not getting too high or too low.

The idea of offering my W to come out with the kids and I has really got me thinking. In some ways it's breaking the 37 rules as it may be seen by my W as pursuing but I also think it would be so great for our kids to see their parents together doing something with them. If I were to even approach her about it, how would I do it? Or should I wait for a while yet?