I tried the pursuing lightly simply by telling him I felt I made a mistake, his response was that I had six weeks to change my mind and now it is too late. I have tried all the things you suggested but they didn't work and pushed him further and he told me it was over. Sent me a hate mail blaming me for everything told me he wished I stayed away and that OW deserves more and now wants me to stay away. I decided to grant him is wish and go away. Whatever he is going through he needs to do it w/o me pressuring him he is very hurt, angry, and hateful. I have learned now that he had been seeing OW before I'd asked for the separation which explains his quick decision to get the big D over with. Right now I am doing what he would NOT expect: not plead, beg, pressure, respond, scream, yell, cry, or take him at his word. I am just going to give him some breathing room to explore his actions and decisions. It is killing me but I think putting any pressure on him is pushing him further and confusing him. I am shutting the door, not locking, just shutting it for now and waiting for now. There will be a time soon that he will need to reach out to me and I will crack the door open and see where he is.
We don't really get to see the WAS return as the LBS spouse much, we all know it happens. But I think it has a few different perimeters with just the standard LBS posts.
First, let me say, thank you for coming forward, its going to help a lot of people actually. Gives the "other side" or the grass isn't always greener perspective.
I think the giving him even more space after being "absolutely certain" you were done, is a super fine line. I think if my wife came back, I would need her to show more me that she's done some work, he doesn't trust anything about what your saying now. I'd be just waiting to get hurt again, or for that other sure to drop again. Why would I want to go back to someone that was so sure before, only to have them change their mind again? I would need to see some of the effort that you didn't want to put in before. I'd want to be chased a bit I guess. Silence, been there done that when you walked out the first time, why go back to that? Why let my guard down if its not going to feel any different. If you think he's just gonna change his mind after the hurt he's been through, the silence you put him thru, the detachment you showed before, the way you walked away (2700 miles away). I'm not sure you understand the pain he had to go thru to get where he is today, a wall 500 ft. tall. Happy or not, he's not letting anyone in right now, he's just in survival mode.
Silence doesn't exactly help chip away at that wall, its just building it higher. Now im not saying put on the full chase here, he doesn't trust you. But a text every few days, once a week is a good start. An offer to take him out to dinner, or a movie. The things he probably begged you for before. Sure, your probably going to get a "no" most the time, but slowly chip away. Show your interested, complete silence comes off as more disinterested to me I guess.
Your perspective is interesting and somewhat enlightening. First, I understand what your saying about him not trusting me, I was certain now I am not. His worry about the other shoe dropping is completely true. However, there are a few things you interjected that are not true.
First, you need to understand WHY I decided to walk away AND why I decided I wanted to try again.
I gave up and became distant after many years of trying to get him to spend more time with me, after going to counselor after counselor only to end up eventually going alone. After him not only condoning verbal abuse from his friends, but him blaming and participating in the verbal abuse and then eventually choosing his friends over his wife. I pursued I chased for 12 years only to spend most of my time trying to make him happy. He was already gone, I gave up because I didn't know what else to do. He moved downstairs over a year before our separation and would only come upstairs at 9 or 10 at night then just want to go to bed or watch a show (of course one he wanted) if we went anywhere it had to do with his work. I understand that because I was the one to say this isn't working it must be because I didn't want to put in any work. The problem was he was content to do what he wanted with whom he wanted and put our relationship on autopilot just expecting me to be upstairs waiting for him and grace me with his presence. Well I waited for years and I cried for years not 6 weeks and I didn't leave because there was someone on the side waiting. I left because I gave up hope that he would never do the work required to make our marriage work. I didn't happen over night, and trust me all I did was try but he believes his girlfriend deserves more than his wife. I tried lightly pursuing it made things worse, he asked me to go away so I am giving him what he ulitimately asked for silence. Nothing else has worked.
So finally after 3 months of no contact, I had to contact H regarding tax, pictures etc. I sent him a brief email with one polite sentence requesting tax info and pictures. It was very non emotional, but of course H reacted with hostility and said that finalizing our divorce was more pressing. Instead of my usual response, I replied without emotion explaining my request and apologized for not being clear. I didn't respond or mention the divorce at all just topic I initiated. He did respond apologetically stating again that we needed to finalize our divorce. I have not responded and don't intend to. I don't know if that is the right thing to do or not, but it seems he is still hostile, he did say I was a significant part of his life and he wasn't just going to erase me which was the opposite of his last email over 3 months ago. I guess I am still riding the roller coaster.....
