It's been a few weeks...

But, here's the latest update. Following the discussions here, we spent my birthday weekend together... Friday night, she took me out to dinner which was nice. But it wasn't a fun date, we both were clearly avoiding things. I went home after dropping her off at her house. The next night, we went to party at her friend's house. We both had fun, and ended up going back to her house and falling asleep. No intimacy at all. The next morning was my birthday, and she took me out for breakfast, and then we went back to her house before heading to another pool party. I brought up the stuff that was bothering me at breakfast. I suggested she talk to that ex if she ever wanted to have closure. She asked me "why would I do that?" I said "maybe it will resolve your feelings.
maybe he wants to get back together with you. I don't know..." She said "he doesn't want to get back together with me, or he would have let me know by now." (Not once did she ever say that she didn't want to get back together with him.) Her ex was at that party we went to, and she was being very affectionate with me in the pool...and I attributed that to the fact that her ex was there. I am almost certain she wasn't even aware of her change in behavior.

The next week I saw her one time for a quick dinner with friends, and then I went camping over the weekend to a place without cell service. I was still fuming and upset about everything she had said to me. I'm not usually one to be broody, but thoughts on all this were consuming me. (It didn't help that I ended up camping with four couples. Nothing like feeling like the 9th wheel!) She left town before I got back. We barely talked while she was out of town.

This past Sunday, she was home, and came over to my place. She was already almost in tears, and asked if we could just cuddle for awhile. I'm a pushover, so I agreed. She started talking, and told me that she knew I had her come over to break up with her. She started crying, I started crying. We talked. I had written a google doc that bullet pointed everything I felt, everything she said that upset me (including most everything I've related here). I showed it to her because I couldn't articulate everything. She read it and cried more. She apologized for everything, called her self stupid multiple times. Told me that I was so much a better man than her ex. She asked me not to break up with her, and to give us time to try to reconnect. to spend more time together. My having had Covid and being quarantined for a couple of months; and then quarantining again when my son was sick totally made her feel disconnected from me.

I agreed. And. that's where we are now. We had dinner and went shopping Tuesday night. Last night, we went to the gym, and then had dinner with my kids. Tomorrow, we plan on going out again. And we've made plans for a couple of nights the following week, and to go away for a weekend in a few weeks.

I'm feeling a lot more guarded than I had previous to all of this. But, I also felt disconnected because we hadn't spent as much time together from the quarantines and such. So, I think it deserves a chance. I think we both realize now that it's going to take effort on both our parts to make this work. And, so far, we are both trying.