Saying "I love you"?

[Portia]

It is tricky.

Just remember that DBing is counterintuitive.

She KNOWS you love her. Get serious, she's leaving you and is still confident of getting that response from you. She KNOWS. Or she would not be able to play you as effectively as she is. She is still leaving, right?

None of us is advocating being an a-hole. If she says I love you, think of a response that is kind but not always ILY back. Something light, like "ditto" or "well, shows you have good taste". Gauge the moment. Sometimes say ILY back. NEVER initiate it - not in words or texts.

I can only speak from my own experience. I have done this dance. In my case, the ILY were not anything but a way to assuage his guilt about screwing around. To us, those words are true and sincere. To them, they are not always. They may be true, but there is also a whole subtext behind them.

Look to her actions to guide you; words are too easy.

[mtb1981]

Still unsure on how to go handle this situation. She went from wanting to get a place in St. Louis to back on the fence. She mentioned wanting to look at a place closer to home. Used the term "we" alot (the yard is smaller, so we wouldn't have to mow as much, etc.) I asked her why she used the word we, she explained that she still didn't know what she wanted. Sometimes she thinks she wants her own place in St. Louis, sometimes she wants to find a place that is between both our jobs and for all of us to live there together, sometimes she thinks she just wants to come back home. I know that she is stressed out out the new job and does not get along very well with one of her coworkers. Last week she called me during the day and said she was thinking about quitting and just coming home. I didn't agree, disagree, or give advice. I just validated. I really wanted to encourage that train of thought though, but I bit my tongue. We are getting along better than ever and she is coming home more often. When she is here she seems to be happy and makes comments about how she misses us and spending time with us. As for now, I guess I'm going to keep doing what I have been doing. I hope that with time, her attraction to St. Louis will wear off and she will realize what she has here at home and will want to come back. Only time will tell, I guess.

[mtb1981]

Wife is coming home tonight and will be here for the next few days. She seems really excited to be coming home. Says she misses us and can't wait to see us! Lately I have been struggling with the idea of being her "back up plan". A lot of people have been telling me that if she truly loved me she would be more willing to work on things and come home. I have started to tell myself that being an option is better than being out of the picture for now. Helps with the PMA. With all the positive changes I have made in my life and her coming around more often to see it, the chances of her wanting to reconcile should only increase, in my opinion. So even if I am a safety net for now, i think it's worth the quality time, affection, and I love you's she gives me when she is here. Hope is alive and I am keeping the faith!

[mtb1981]

Update: On the 4th of July, W tells me that she wants to get a place together. So we are currently looking for a new place around here. She still plans on keeping the job 2 hours away and driving back and forth. I asked her why she wanted to keep the job bc it really doesn't pay well enough to justify that much driving. She says she feels like she owes it to her boss bc he gave her the job in a time of need to help her out. I validated but also expained that he would probably undertand that she wanted to be with her family again and would respect that. Then it occurred to me that the job is now the back up plan. She doesn't want to quit in case things between us don't work out so she can go back. I briught this up to her and she said that there was some truth to that and asked me if it made me mad. I told her that it did not make me mad, validated her feelings, and said that it upset me a little that she didn't trust that things would be OK. But that I totally understood where she was coming from. I asked her to be more open with me and to let me now what she wanted in our relationship so I could know what to do to get rid of her doubts. She said she didn't know what she wanted, that it was late, and he didn't want to talk about it anymore. (She has always had a tendency to avoid talking about problems, especially dealing with us. It's easier for her to look the other way and pretend like they will go away on their own.) i have tried workin on this with her and telling her that if we worked together on solving the problems, they will go away, but if we ignore them, they will pile up. I could tell she was getting agitated. So I told her to talk to me about it when she was ready, and that seemed to make her more mad. "What does that mean? Talk about it when I'm ready" i told her it meant just that. If now wasn't a good time, to find me when she thought it was a good time and we could talk about it then. She thought that I meant it in a snotty, sarcastic way. i was sincere when I said it and I said it in a peaceful tone. She is not good at having discussions. She views everything as an attack and gets defensive. I think that we had fought so much in the past that she is still in that mode when dealing with me. I hope she will see that I have no fight left in me. That I may not agree with her at times, but I refuse to fight about it. Hopefully I keep it up and it starts to rub off on her.