Digging in

[NTX_Dad]

Jon Jon Jon - you STILL haven't gone dark. Every time I visit your thread, you share conversations about R.

And while I understand the one last night was intended to show her that you can move on, instead it's put pressure and guilt on her, and makes you appear clingy.

And the margarita picture? I feel like that's a slap in her face - which I personally like considering what she's done to you, but it wasn't a good idea either... again it looks clingy and manipulative.

I don't know what you decided about the ring, but I wouldn't wear it. That too looks clingy. It's just a ring. I understand the symbolism when you got it during the wedding, but she's done nothing but pull away from you, so not wearing the ring sends a message to her that you'll be fine without her, in my humble opinion.

[2ndtimearoundCA]

Jon, you're getting a lot of conflicting advice. All of it sounds like good advice. You need to do what works in your situation if you want to save your M. If you have two possible paths and one is more in line with your values, you tend to go in that direction. You might want to try to go outside of your comfort zone and see what happens. Do you want to exit your M feeling you did what was RIGHT or do you want to save your M by doing what WORKS. This is actually an extremely difficult choice for many on here. I personally would always want to choose to do what works, but even then, I get caught up in the moment and make bad choices.

One of the things we all get caught up in is the particular circumstances of the moment. I do this. We make choices choices based on what is going on in a particular moment rather than focussing on the bigger picture.

Can you detach the state of your relationship from the legal proceedings? An M is so much more than legal paperwork.

[AnotherStander]

Jon, I always come here hoping to see new growth from you, but then I start reading and can't help but reach for a 2x4, LOL! I sense that you're trying to convince yourself you don't care what happens to the M, but I really don't think you're there. Your emotions are still all over the place. When you get to the point that you can go MONTHS without cycling through emotions over your sitch, but can instead meet it head-on with calm, poise and zero anger, and have gotten to the point where you aren't trying to "go dark" or "go dim" or other "tricks" but instead are just living your life and leaving your W to live hers, THEN you have gotten to the place you need to be. THEN you can decide if you're done and ready to move on. You are NOWHERE CLOSE to that place right now. I think you're in the throes of a false sense of being there, that happened to me too, and it happened right around the same timeframe after S that you're in right now. Take it from me, you need to step back, take a deep breath and gather yourself. Stop the pressure, stop the R talks, stop trying to convince yourself you're done. Find yourself.

W: "I love you, but I don't have warm feelings."
Me: "Well that stands to reason since we've barely seen each other or spoken for 2 months, and the times we have spoken typically haven't been very nice at all."

Anytime your W shares her feelings (good, bad or otherwise) you need to validate. A validating response might have been: I hear you saying you don't have warm feelings towards me and I understand why that might be, can you expand on how that makes you feel?

W: "Well, I love my dad, but I would never be around him, or let him hurt me again."
Me: "I'm not your dad, and you've never been able to stand your dad for more than a few hours at a time, but you and I have a good time almost every time we're together."

You basically told her "what you feel doesn't matter because I'm not your dad". You negated her feelings. Instead you should validate- "It must have been very difficult on you being around someone you loved, but that hurt you that way. How did that feel, were you angry, or sad, or frustrated? Do you see parallels between that and our relationship?"

W: "Well, there still aren't much emotions."
Me: "Don't b jealous." I have no idea why I did this!

Again, she's talking about feelings and you should be validating. Sending a pic of a margarita doesn't quality as validation, LOL!

I probably then broke every DB rule in the book, but it felt exactly right, I dunno why

"Why" is because DB'ing is counterintuitive. It "feels" wrong. That's why you have to set your feelings aside, they betray you.

Me "I understand that you don't feel much emotions right now, but emotions are fleeting, and can change based on whether someone get a good night's sleep.

You went into fix it mode. Don't try to fix her, you can't. Validate her feelings.

If you are 'done', we'll take the kids out for a nice breakfast, and we can tell them that you've decided to finalize the divorce, and it'll be done in a few months. If so, I will not be contacting you again, and I will wish you the very best in life. If you decide that's not what you want, you know where I stand and how I feel. Have a great night."

To me that sounds controlling and manipulative, like you're trying to force her to do things on your terms. And certainly it's applying a lot of pressure on her. Again, I think you need to step back and just let things be for a while. A LONG while.

[NTX_Dad]

A/S is spot on

[Wonka]

Jon,

From what I've read about W's thoughts and comments, I get the sense that she's looking to you to fight for her and the M. Doesn't mean that you need to go all out for it.

Are you truly listening to your W? Listen quietly and carefully. All the clues are right there. It isn't about you right now. It is all HER and her thoughts/emotions at the moment. Be her friend when you go have the face-to-face interactions and let her initiate R talks.

Your frustrations are bleeding out and comes out in a push-pull dynamic. This is why you told W that she needs to tell the kids she is pulling the plug on the M and initiating D paperwork. It seems to me that you want to deflect and heap all the guilt onto W so you'll come out as the "nice guy" in this. Not good thinking on your part.

Look inward and talk to yourself to see if you can sidestep the discomfort and antsy feelings. There's no firm timetable that you have to do A, B, C in order to arrive at X. It is all an illusion.

[JayMan]

Man. What an insane two days. This post is long, apologies in advance.

First of all thanks everyone for your comments and thoughts. I will respond to them when my head is a little clearer.

Anyway, today, I was supposed to let W know about taking the kids to breakfast this week; she had suggested a certain restaurant (Bob Evans for those of you that know it). I texted her this morning letting her know that it would have to be Sunday after church. I then said Bob Evans sounds good right now, I'm starving! Just a chatty text, then was going to go about my day.

W: "Why don't you just come over here and grab something to eat. I'm about to get in the shower."
Me: *sit in stunned silence, no response*
W: "Door's unlocked, getting in shower."

I threw on a nice shirt, cologne, combed hair in about 10 seconds! I went over, and she was walking around in her bathrobe getting coffee, and offered me some. I helped her open a box with a dresser in it (joked that she just needed manual labor), and then we sat and drank coffee and chatted about kids, school, work, life, etc.

W: "Come in the bedroom and talk to me while I get dressed."
Me: "uh."
W: "I can stand behind the closet door, silly."

So I sat in a chair in her room, and she talked about S5 misbehaving (W has a hard time handling him). She reached around the door to show me that her panties matched a pillow on her bed, then she walked out in a shirt and panties (oh, that bootie, yes I looked), and went to get a pair of pants, and nonchalantly walked back over.

Anyway the conversation spanned probably 2 hours - I actually said I needed to leave a couple of times to pick up D13's prescriptions, and W was like "You don't have to rush, the pharmacy is open all day." After much internal debate, I did decide to wear my ring. I didn't try to flash it around, actually kinda forgot I was wearing it, but W touched it and said, "ooooooo" and kinda smiled at it. I really think it was the right decision; even though it went a little against the grain. Maybe since I never took it off in "anger", it was a little different situation.

Very little R talk other than she asked me about the hearing Monday, said she had never gotten a notice. I kinda chuckled and told her it was a little odd to be hanging out having coffee when we would be meeting in court to start a divorce trial on Monday - she laughed and said, "Well, maybe we can grab breakfast together before the hearing to make it weirder!" Then, "Even if we have that hearing that doesn't mean anything is final."

She then said she really didn't know what to do about D; that she felt there was so much junk that had been said and done that maybe it was impossible to come back from. I told her I understood and sometimes it seemed overwhelming to me as well. I said if we wanted to have any chance of success, we'd have to go one day at a time and start very small. She talked about the one time about a year where she left for about a month, and when she came back, nothing was different. I told her I had pushed for her to come back too soon because, quite honestly, I missed her, and we should have allowed more time, and gone to marriage counseling, etc, but that's a lesson we can learn from.

She said, "I don't know" about 8 times, then asked me if she could think about it until Sunday when we went to lunch. I said sure, I was just listening, but didn't want to pressure her, and left.

I need to take a little while to digest this now!

[NTX_Dad]

Yep, been there, done that. I visited my W a handful of times while we were separated and she would try to tease me like that. I am not sure why. Maybe it was to torture me. Or maybe it was for her to see if she still had power over me.

And I have to admit, one of the times we ended up ML, and it was one of the best we had ever had, went on for hours.

I can't tell you if it was a good idea or not.... it probably wasn't in the grand scheme of things, but at that moment we both needed some stress relief. Things did get worse and the D got closer after that, but luckily we never made it to the end.

[Wonka]

Good job! Now it's a good time to go dim and make W want to seek you out. The ring...I was right in suspecting that W has attached some sentimental value to it. Check off on that list of yours as a positive in the column.

[2ndtimearoundCA]

Jon .. I have been following your situation for a while now and you have been in a similar place before. Last time after your w was giving you positive responses, you did your version of going dim and your w said she wanted to continue with the D. What can you do different this time? Maybe go darker, maybe don't go dark at all. Go back and read your own posts for clues. Also, take a close look at your actions just prior to your W seemingly a thinking that she might want want to stick around. Go back and read your own posts and see if you can find a pattern. That's what I would do anyway

[JayMan]

Just real quick, still thinking and digesting, fantastic feedback from everyone! As far as contact, my plan is not to contact W until we meet for lunch Sunday.

However, I'll probably see her at the "First Friday" shindig our town does once a month tonight, and will see her tomorrow because I'm watching step-kids while she goes to a birthday party. I'm actually sort of excited about her going to the party because it'll be with our old circle of friends, who she has mostly avoided for the last few weeks.

I'm not sure how to handle tonight. I'm thinking maybe just say hi and be nice, hug the step-kids, then just talk to other people...