P.S. Wherever we decide to go, two rooms, ok? If we have our "healthy ending" on the first day, I want to be free to date during the remainder of the trip. Ha! ;^)
Catnip
M22,H45,W45 S21/18D12 Retain faith that you will prevail in the end, regardless of the difficulties and at the same time confront the most brutal facts of your current reality, whatever they might be.
I will musclegal. Quite the soap opera I've got going!
Went to see W last night to hang out after kids went to bed. Just chilled and talked and watched TV. She is so touchy feely now. Always in contact with me. She oozes affection.
We talked about what we want out of life, and out of a partner. I was trying to be honest, but I couldn't help but notice I was describing her in most ways. I didn't mention honesty and trustworthiness though! Not quite ready to give her those back yet.
After joking about my number one requirement being someone with a smokin' hot bod, I said I learned how important it is for me to be with someone smart, someone who's curious, and interested in new things, and likes to talk through ideas. She just nodded, I'm sure she knew she had that one nailed. I continued, saying I want someone who appreciates me, not for what I do, but for who I am, and what I add to this world. She smiled and said "That's not hard at all for you now." I have not felt such ego stroking from her since we were first dating. She is remarkably good at it. It's how she got me in the first place.
She said she wants someone who treats her gently. I knew she wasn't just referring to physically, but emotionally overall. I've been so gentle with her since we started this recent interaction, and she told me it's what's pulling her toward me. She convincingly said "If you keep that up, you've got me." She has looked back through her life and hates the hostility that's been so prevalent, in her childhood, her first marriage, and then how we got. I can see how she is blossoming without that cloud of hositility over her.
She's starting to re-introduce me back into her social world, and it's brought up a dilemma for me. Her social world is pretty much what OUR social world was before she left. I developed a new social world for myself as part of my GALing, and survival. It's easy for her to bring me into her world, but I don't quite know what to do about mine. I have a lot of single friends now, including some women. I'm not sure how well we'd "fit" into that world as a married couple. I guess I GAL'ed sufficiently, because I'm finding myself not wanting to entirely give up that world. What to do? I think it would be VERY unhealthy for me to leave it all behind and go back to my world being solely defined by my marriage.
dare you to play man in me by bob dylan at an open mike soon
Does my W need to be there? Just playing it to a random crowd doesn't seem too big of a deal. The tune is up my alley, I think I could do it.
W did tell me she'd like to come watch me play the next time. Could possibly cause a clash between my W and my single world, as there may be "others" there too...
Yikes! These are complications of reconciling I didn't consider.
Well, W and I had our "talk" over the weekend. Went about as well as could be expected. We hung out together as a family for the day, then we decided to go to W's house to put the kids to bed and watch a movie there. Before the movie we decided to have a serious talk, to discuss our "dealbreakers", i.e. things that would end our reconciliation right then. Started very tough. W said the only dealbreaker for her was that I needed to stay “nice”, and not go back to being grumpy. I said I couldn’t imagine being like I was. Then she asked what my dealbreakers were. I was silent for quite a while, as we knew “the talk” was about to start. We were sitting holding hands. Here’s how the dialog went:
W: “I know this is really hard for you to talk about, so I’ll start by saying OM and I are not communicating anymore.” Me: “You can’t ever again, ever, in any way.” W: “I know, and I won’t.” Me: “If he contacts you, you have to immediately tell me.” W: “I will. And if he does, I’ll tell him I don’t want him to.” Me: “And W, you need to get rid of it all, everything.” W: “I will…” (She hesitates and struggles a bit) “I’m going to need time though. If we get to the point of living together again, it will all be gone.” Me: “I can’t see myself ever being okay with you going to <OM's country> alone again.” W: “I know.” She smiled a little and said “You can come with me.” Me: “Maybe. I won’t ask you to give up everyone you know there, so maybe, after we are really good again, maybe, we can go together.” W: “Ok, but I’m shooting for fantastic, not just really good.” (I loved that comment) Me: “It’s going to take a long long time before I can see myself wanting to go.” W: “I’m not expecting myself to want to go back for at least a few years.” Me: “Ok.” W: “H, I can’t change what happened. It happened, and it had a big effect on me. I know it’ll never be ok, but I’m hoping someday we can at least have someplace to put it that feels safe. I hate that it’s so hard on you. I hate when anything, anything at all comes up that reminds you, because I don’t want it to hurt you any more.” Me: Just nodded. I didn’t know what to say or how to react. My walls went up a bit, but not nearly as much as I was expecting.
W left to get a drink of water. When she came back:
W: (walks in and hugs me) “Thank you for not asking me to give up <OM's country>. The people there are so important to me.” (the people she knew as a teenager there) Me: “I know how much they mean to you.” W: “Thank you. Anything else?” Me: “No other dealbreakers. I am worried about something though.” Me: (really struggling to get this out) “I am having a hard time seeing a path to re-integrate you into my family.” W: “I understand. If we’re as great with each other as I’m hoping and expecting us to be, they’ll see it and hopefully come around. Right now that isn’t important to me though.” Me: “Luckily they aren’t local. It gives us a buffer.” W: “If they were local, well, we’d have to deal with it. I did have some problems with them before all this happened, but I think we can eventually be okay with each other again.” Me: “It’s hard for me to see a path, but I’m confident it’ll be ok. I know the path goes through me.” W: nods W: “I think that’s it for me. There are some other things I’m going to need from you, but I don’t think they’ll be dealbreakers. In fact, from what you’ve said, I think they’ll be things you want to do.” Me: (smiling) “I think I will.”
W: (leans back and reflects a bit) “I want calm and peace in my life. I’ve realized that’s what keeps me nice.” Me: “I can tell.” Me: “Calm and peace was definitely not important to the W I met years ago though!” W: “The way we interacted when we met, the stuff I said I liked, the way we argued through topics, I’ve realized I don’t want that anymore.” Me: “Me neither. I like talking about things with you, but I think now we can exchange our ideas without the arguing.” W: (smiled and got excited) “Exactly! I love talking to you.”
W: “Can we watch the movie now?” Me: "We don't have to talk any more right now, but there are other things I need you to answer, like how you could act the way you did a year ago and act like this now." W: "I could ask you the same thing." (that was a cop out, but I'll let it go for now) Me: “Allright, let's watch the movie.”
We watched the movie laying together on her sofa. She was very affectionate. At one point she touched my forehead and said "You're not ok, are you? Your brow is furrowed." I replied "I'm not perfectly ok, but I'm not very 'not ok'". She looked a little concerned, but we went back to watching the movie.
So that was it. I didn't bring up transparency. Actually I forgot about it. I'm trying to decide what I should insist upon there. There's no foolproof way for me to verify no contact. They did most of their "talking" using Skype webcams. I don't think a keylogger would capture anything. If she was on her computer and a Skype "call" came in from OM, she could just click on it and start talking. I don't know if Skype logs everything, and even if it did, I'm sure the history can be deleted. She has three computers too, one of which stays at her office, plus her iPhone. I would need to ask to have access to her office computer whenever I wanted, which would mean having access to her office whenever I wanted. Her two business partners use that computer too. I'm sure they'd have serious objection my searching through it's hard drive whenever I wanted to. There might even be HIPA laws that would make my viewing their e-mail and files, due to their line of work. I don't know, I might need to just trust her, or better yet, trust my gut. When her A started before, my gut knew something was wrong, I just never considered an A, never in a million years. My eyes are wide open now though!
You really have done an amazing job and your patience is all very inspiring.
On a totally random note: go buy some Chocolate Cheerios. I realize this has nothing to do with anything but I needed to tell somebody at this hour how delicious they are.
Seriously though, you really are fabulous! Your W is very, very fortunate to have you (and your kids too!).
I am glad you never listened to my ass busting divorce ideas because look how it all panned out. I love being wrong in these cases!
Thanks CityGirl. It's been quite a ride, and it's not over yet. Folks here say the real work starts with piecing. Crap.
Ha! I'm actually allergic to chocolate, so no chocolate Cheerios for me. I'll pick up a box for my kids though!
Some of my hardest decisions were those that tried to balance the advice I was getting from the people in my life, along with what I feel inside, and what I felt from her. You weren't wrong though. I still think I'd be better off if I had pushed through the D, or at least legal separation last year, like you and many others were advising me to do. I don't think it would have changed any of what's going on now, except it would have removed the stress of our lingering financial and custody issues.
Saw W this morning. She has a pinched nerve in her neck and had to take the day off from work to rest. She texted me and asked if I could stop over for a few minutes after dropping the kids at school. I picked up coffee for us both. She's in quite a bit of pain, and she was happy to see me.
After a few minutes she said "After our talk the weekend I found myself rubber banding. I thought there is no way we're going to be able to do this, it'll be too hard. But then when I remember how this feels, us being together like this, I come back to wanting it." I said "Yeah, I was doing a little rubber banding myself." She continued "I sort of panic, like there is no way I can do what it will take, no way I want to give up what I'm going to need to give up. When I think about being fantastic with you, like we said, then it all comes back and I want to do it." She paused and said "I'm going to have to be so aware, and so present with you about certain things. It's daunting, but it's worth it."
When she talked about what she's going to need to "give up", I don't think she was talking about OM, as that's already over. I think she was talking about her freedom. Like I said a few posts ago, I'm feeling the same trepidation. I worked hard to build my new life, and I've learned to enjoy my freedom. I'm hesitant to just give it up.
Funny, she did ask again if I'm dating anyone. I was evasive again, but eventually I said "No, I'm not dating anyone, but I do have people in my life you don't know, and a few of them are women." She reared back and said in an amused tone "A few?!" I joked "Yeah, I always have a few in my stable." I could see she was struggling with a bit of jealousy, but she used humor and smiled and said "I don't mind, I have something they don't have, I'm married to you." I replied "Yeah, and you have three kids with me."
Like v1olin said, nothing wrong with a little competition!
Me:57 H:52 M:28 Got another lawyer last year and filed. D35,S/D twins28,D22 EA4/04 End? Who knows? "Life is like a mirror. Smile at it and it smiles back at you." — Peace Pilgrim
