Thanks ladies, for chiming in. I really appreciate the help I get when I find myself in odd, new territory.
I took your advice and just carried on as if nothing really happened. And, to be honest, I feel better. I texted her and told her how my day went (we've been doing that lately in text) and I ask her if S was still giving her a hard time. No reference to anything that happened over the last 24. She replied back and that was basically that.
I think you guys (ladies) are right. This really isn't the time to get sulky or act weird - for a million reasons. Having had the day (and last night) to over-think everything I guess consistency in the face of perceived adversity is key in this new situation. If I get LIS's point - if I lost my sh*t every time this happens in this stage I would be a round-the-clock basket case.
Every now and then I get little shots like this that pull me out of the "live one day at a time philosophy" that I have been trying to live. Some time ago in college a friend once told me that the 4 most important words in dating are "acknowledge and move on"...seems rather apropos here in DB-land as well.
Now I just find myself wondering if she wants to "talk" or just have fun Saturday. I hope it is the latter. No matter, I will be prepared for both and stay in a good mood.
I fully disclaim that I am about to mind-read here, but I wonder if now that my parents are moving out and she herself said that was keeping us from spending time together - if she is somewhat afraid of the opportunity to spend time here with me and S...and her dog. We had a pretty natural barrier to spending time together that is about to dissolve. Maybe there is fear there. I dunno.
Anyhooo....thanks again. I am calming a bit. Still a little stunned and curious....but calm.
Listen, Crimson, we get to come here and say what we want... what's on our mind so I want to stay very mindful that is what you are doing... Saying what you want here so you don't screw up out there. So my words here are more of a reminder to you than a lecture to you...
You are analyzing what she is thinking way too much. And it is so pointless I cannot even begin to tell you. I wish to God that Sandi would show up here so you can understand it from the perspective of another WAW. I want you to hear me CLEARLY. If you asked her right now if your parents moving out spooked her she might say yes... at 8:46 CST. At 9:00 CST, if you asked her, she will have a whole other reason. At 9:10 CST, she will deny being spooked at all. At 9:20 CST, she might even fall in love with the idea of reconciling with you... only to crash at 9:30 CST having an epiphany that it might really be over. If you think I'm kidding, please please please go find Sandi and she will tell you the same exact thing. This is why I am telling you... do NOT change anything. She is the picture of instability right now. So you MUST be the stable one. I know you are not feeling all that stable inside, but what you show her is STABILITY.
Your curiosity is understandable, however, it's like you are trying to solve an unsolvable riddle. Will this come to a conclusion? You bet. But that's going to take awhile. So you are very right, one day at a time. And today? YOU ARE NOT GOING TO FIGURE THIS OUT. So stop spinning your wheels. It [censored]. I get it. I spin my wheels 24/7 so I know how you feel. You have my empathy, believe me. But this is going to happen in God's timing, not yours. What did He tell you? Hand her to me. You don't get to hand her to God and then try to take it back from Him. He didn't tell you to do that. He told you to hand her over to Him.
Wow, separated 2/5/11 and still going through these mind games today. My eyes are beginning to open to how long this journey takes. I wish you the best of luck and will join LIS in prayer.
I guess the GOOD thing is that at least now before I start over-analyzing things I KNOW that I am about to start over-analyzing things - so I can kind of short-circuit the whole process when I need to. I think there is a healthy portion of thought that I need to put into things - and then just let it end after that.
Frankly, though, I have really tried hard over the last year to get out of the "what's she thinking" mode.
I don't think that I was mentally prepared for the stage that I am in right now....her guessing and second guessing what she wants or does not want. For some reason, I thought this was going to be a straight-forward path at this point with no back-sliding or hiccups. WTF was I thinking? I guess I have been in the last phase so long I never really considered what this one would be like.
I guess I am often at a loss for why she is so fearful to refer to something as a "date". I don't question it, and I respect her wanting not to - but I just wonder what it implies or means to her. Especially considering she sorta referred to our last outing together as one.
So I am staying normal and supportive and steady at this point today. No real word from her yet - but that is typical and I am not going to hunt her down or anything.
Saturday should be interesting.....kind of like waiting to see which XW shows up, ya know? Happy "let's have fun" XW or somber "we need to talk through things" XW....either way, I will be prepared.
What is she fearful of? What is she thinking. Very hard to tell you that. I can give you my perspective of what I was going through in my mind...
My H was on me to reconcile for about 9 months. For me? It was a decision about morality more than anything. In addition to this site, I belonged to another site which is Christian based and they preached about the morality of reconciling your marriage. I felt a whole lot of guilt. So one day, I just pulled off the bandaid and told him I would try. I didn't want to try. Not even a little bit. Inside? I wanted to be gone because he had hurt me so badly the first time I honestly didn't think I could deal with another round of it. I know I have said you should roll the dice with the person you already know. But that wasn't going through my mind at the time. What was going through my mind is 1) This man has a history of hurting me and he'll do it again 2) I found at least some happiness after this mess so why do I want to go backwards?
I had developed a detachment to my H after he left me. For a long time, I thought I was the best darn DB'er out there. Not hardly! I didn't really develop detachment so much as distrust, resentment and a whole lot of other toxic emotions. That's very difficult to put away.
I went back in a way because I gave up.
This is not going to be a straight line, Crimson. I know you have been through so much and I don't want to hurt you. She might be making the turn but she's still in a lot of pain. She's still traumatized by the pain she's already gone through. It all comes full circle and she's almost like she was in the days she first left you. She's watching and waiting for you to screw up. But you continue to do what you are doing. You be present. You show her that you are willing to fight for her. You remain stable even when things look bad. You keep it joyful and happy. These are the things that will best increase your odds of keeping you in the game.
And Crimson? You could do everything perfectly and still lose this thing. I don't want you to use that as a reason to beat yourself up and shoot at yourself. I have seen over and over again some really impressive people here who ended up losing their marriage in the end. But they found themselves. They truly did learn their lessons and correct their issues. So you keep talking it out. You keep coming here and saying whatever crosses your mind. That's how we continue to discover ourselves. And that's a huge gift in and of itself.
"I had developed a detachment to my H after he left me. For a long time, I thought I was the best darn DB'er out there. Not hardly! I didn't really develop detachment so much as distrust, resentment and a whole lot of other toxic emotions. That's very difficult to put away."
Yes, indeed. I'm piecing and feeling this way. I'm hoping time and exposure to a more loving H will help the healing.
Stay honest, loving, and patient. That's what I need.
M:63 H:53 S:41, SS:28, SS:25, SD:23 M:15 T:16
Bomb:12/17/11, "I think we should go our separate ways." H moves to his mother's house, 4/1/12 12/21/12: H moves back home, piecing
As scheduled, XW and I met for dinner at a nice place that we had been to before at a resort. The discussion and mood was far more light than I anticipated and we enjoyed each other’s company.
She did initiate R talk over dinner – I think I handled it OK and I really tried to not react or drag up the past (that becomes important later). I guess to spare the blow-by-blow recap, the overall theme was this:
She clearly sees that there has been change within me…she no longer questions it. She still finds me physically attractive . And in her own words “there is nothing I want more than to want to come back home with you”. The hold up is still what she has mentioned before. She is struggling with feelings and essentially said that so much happened during the process that she still feels kind of shut down. She said that she knows we BOTH did things that drove our marriage into the ground…and that she is learning to forgive both of us. I think she is very sincere when she says that.
In listening to her, it is so so so obvious that a lot of the loss of feelings resulted from things in the past….during the marriage….during the divorce process….things that I told her I cannot go back and change, things that I told her that I do regret at times. However, I did not try to bring up my position on the old issues or defend myself on them. That is new for me. I have learned that they are in the past and that we simply do not have the same memory of events…and we most likely never will. It is truly something that is irreconcilable – and for the first time in my life I think I am OK with that….I don’t feel the pressing need to be “right” about the past. It’s a road to nowhere.
One thing really did dig deep at me, though – and I had a hard time not blurting out a few things. XW said that I fought her during the whole divorce…that I was in a vengeful mode and/or frame of mind. I calmly tried to tell her that that was the LAST thing on my mind and at the time I was in shock, emotionally distressed, deeply hurt, deeply depressed and just trying to get by day to day. I gave her an open invite to go to my psychiatrist with me to hear from a third party exactly where I was at the time…I doubt she will take me up on it. She cited that I would fight her on everything…not let her take things from the house….I think she thought I was just trying to stick it to her – but in reality I was barely hanging on – I WANTED to help her more, just look at my old posts…I was just trying to detach. She feels that my fighting everything drove up her legal bills and eventually wrecked her financially. I didn’t say it, but in my head I thought that I was fighting for 50/50 custody of my son, not to get stuck with $10,000 of her legal fees, and not to get kicked out of the house – all of which her L was aiming right at me. Even in my depressed state, I could not take that lying down. I had to fight. But it wasn’t to lash out at her or to be “vengeful”…..it just wasn’t. We may never agree on this and it seems to be a sore spot with her.
Despite this part of the convo ^^^^, we really did have a good talk. We ended dinner with a good long hug and agreed to meet up at church on Sunday. We did church and brunch with our S and just spent time walking around together at an outdoor mall…it really was a lot of fun. Later in the day, I thanked her and told her that I enjoyed the time we spent together even though we had some hard discussions. She responded in kind. Later in the day she texted some old pictures of me and S together….said that they were some of her favorites. This morning I got a text from her saying that the three of us should go for another adventure this weekend like our trip up North a few weeks ago. I was glad that she brought it up.
SOOOOO…..I think it was an OK weekend. Clearly, there are still things that need to be worked on and hurts that need to heal. She isn’t heading for the hills just yet, and still proposes time together. I am hopeful that is still a positive sign. I don’t know if this is “piecing” or not just yet, but I am starting to see the road that we will need to walk to get back on track – if we ever do.
Thoughts? Is this normal? Should I be concerned about the “feelings” things still???
Crim as I am not one to give advice on piecing, it is clear to me that your path is clear. You've owned your mistakes from the past and did a very good job in my opinion becoming a better person. It seems that some of the posts I read on here have the same tone. The WAS does in fact try to rewrite history to lean towards themselves and less culpability, and make the LBS take most of the blame. I agree the past is the past. Maybe the new Crim she is also afraid of and right now is confused. I believe that the pressure is now off of you and on her. You can clearly look her in the eye and hold your head up. I don't think you could have done that pre-bomb. You have always been in there and loosing something that you treasure makes you better for the next chapter in your life. Your ex needs to realize this on her own, you want her to be the next chapter and will do whatever it takes to help her get right, and maybe just maybe your son will see two people he loves together. Good Luck and keep us updated.
