OK, so without making everybody trawl back through my original thread (here for the masochists amongst you…)
Headed back up to Scotland for Christmas so our son could have the break we’d planned – rented accommodation outside Aviemore for 5 days. He got his skiing lessons and plenty of presents and love. My wife and I slept in separate beds. But… After the coldness, things had moved on – we got on quite well for the duration.
My parents came up when we got back, took the boy out for the day while we sorted belongings and had a pretty in-depth, frank heart-to-heart, especially about making a decision with her head, not listening to her heart at all or confiding in me how bad she really felt – she clearly regretted that things had got so far for us. This was a sign that I was starting to get through her armour. My folks and I then left, back in the Lakes for the 30th. Pretty soon after getting there things really started to pick up again and we spent most of NYE (she spent it on her own, I in the pub with one of my mates) and the following few days either texting or chatting through Facebook, we were actually getting on really well but she said it’d finally dawned on her just what a decision she’d made, what with being on her own & me having moved everything out (& maybe there’s an element of me having been so quick to do that in order to provoke this realisation).
As a result of the heart-to-heart she agreed to re-think her flat refusal to try to rescue things now that help was being offered by the Army. Some of the comments she made/is currently making sound like her position is softening – “IF we get divorced”, “IF we don’t try again”, “IF we do try again, it’s a fresh start”, “we should think about renewing our vows & having a second honeymoon IF we do try again” (empahsis mine) rather than the brick wall of “when we get divorced” or “we’re not trying again” before Christmas.
Only one fly in the ointment now – within 1/2 hour of arriving back at work from the break she was told she’d be on ops for 4 months at the end of March… Now, OK, we could pull the compassionate card but that would only defer it, probably to a less favourable time, like Christmas 2014, and it’d still be something we’d have to deal with if we do try again so it’ll go ahead as planned and be got out of the way, in the meantime my unit are working out exactly what they will do for me/us that’d give us more time together if she decides we can try and rescue things.
So, in summary (and probably what I should’ve done to keep from War and Peace again!), I don’t want to get my hopes up because she could still decide it’s a no, but things are brighter than they were when I first posted and I have my fingers crossed that she’ll say yes and we can work things out. There’ve been some lows over the last few weeks and a not inconsiderable amount of tears shed, mainly by me…!
In the meantime, thanks for everybody’s support!
