OK, now that I've baited you, I watched "28 Days" today while donating platelets. It's a good video rental if you can get your WS to watch it - all about realizing your addiction and facing the truth. Plus, guys get to look at Sandra Bullock.<P>I've got a session with Steve first thing in the morning and I'd thought I'd pick your brains for good questions. Lately, my wife has been a lot more polite to me. She even called to see how my shoulder was doing. Another time, she apologized for being "short" on the phone in a conversation I don't even remember. I'm changing out au pairs next week and she asked me to get my house cleaner to come in extra on the one day between au pairs to make sure the house looks perfect to give a good impression to the new one - even volunteered to pay for 1/2 of it. Otherwise, she's still at arm's length and doesn't seem interested in spending any time with me. She's unreliable, frazzled, and looks like death warmed over.<P>Of course, remember she's never admitted to an affair - "we're just friends" - and I honestly don't know the current status, but it sure seems to me that either, 1) she's on a down cycle with OM and wants to make sure she doesn't rile me about anything, 2) it's dying a natural death and she doesn't know how to dig herself out of the big hole she's dug, or 3) something I haven't thought of.<P>Any advice/insight will be appreciated.<P>WAT

Dear Dave,<P>As strong as your W tries to act most of the time, you know that she must be hurting a ton somewhere inside her about your son's death, the A, lying to you and others etc. That much pain and denial must take a lot of energy. <P>My vote for what is going on is that she is feeling very low (for whatever reason) and she instinctively knows that you are the one person in her life that is her anchor and that unconditionally loves her. She doesn't want you to see this maybe, but she really does need you there loving her and supporting her from a distance. Her nice actions may be an unconscioius payment by her to keep that security in place.<P>Sometimes with my H I pray that he goes through some crisis that will shake him out of his denial/fog. Of course, I also pray that the crisis won't involve my kids. How is that for ordering up exactly what I want. Did I mention that I was a controller?<P>If I were you, I would continue on exactly like you are. To draw any attention to it at this point could make it disappear. All in all, good stuff

All you needed in the title to bait us was "update"....<P>I had a session this morning with Steve. I had lots of questions in my head the past few days, and of course forgot most of them once I got talking. He certainly does a good job of explaining the concepts even more clearly than you learn by reading, in my opinion. He definitely believes that as long as you have the energy and emotional capability of continuing Plan A, then you should.<P>He asked if I could mention to my wife about talking to him. I'll probably wait for the right time, but I'm sure that will be shut down in one sentence. I'll drop it then.<P>Your situation seems to be according to the book from what I see. As long as you keep your good Plan A going that is the main thing.<P>If any questions come to me, I'll let you know later. By the way, my phone number is yours plus the number "3122697332" (just for reference).<P>Anything happened with the financial LB potential that was brewing? Have you received the separation papers yet? Oh, I'm guessing it is a combo of 1, 2, and 3, one that even she doesn't yet understand. I'm sure that is alot of help.<P>Did you need a brace for the shoulder?<P>Good luck with the session.<P><BR>

Hey Dave,<P>You've never said that your wife looked like death warmed over before. Are you concerned about that? I'll take a shot at analyzing. If she is that frazzeled(sp?) maybe the A is dying and she really is finally having a wakeup call. You are at home(fat and happy ), she's out and situation with OM is not panning out.<BR>I am sure a session with Steve will be like a breath of fresh air. He looks so young by the way. I bet he'll tell you to keep up the Plan A. Of course you could ask him to analyze things for you too. <p>[This message has been edited by cleopatra (edited January 11, 2001).]

Hi Dave<P>Thought I would get in on the act to wish you all the best with Steve, I also have a session with him next Monday.<P>We are all in the same boat with the Ws moods. For a short while around the holiday break my W was really friendly and I felt I was making some headway, however, as soon as New Year came and went it was back to the same old mood swings again.<P>It seems you are doing a great job with Plan A and I am sure Steve will prescribe more of the same.<P>I read in your thread about a possible LB with financial and separation issues. I have just been through this in the last week and I don't know how it will pan out as yet as it was a big LB. Anyway it couldn't be avoided so hopefully we can smooth it over.<P>Regards<BR>Colin

Off topic, but how did you become a platelet donor? My H has done this occasionally, although it's been awhile since the last time. Several years ago, I had ITP (there's not enough room here to type out the full name ), which is basically a shortage of platelets. Most people have about 200,000; I had 7,000 by the time they figured out what was going on. Steroids kicked them back up in no time. Anyway, H has been a regular blood donor and one time they asked him if he'd be willing to donate platelets and he agreed. <P>What's your story?

Persevering - I started donating platelets when my son was being treated for Stage IV Neuroblastoma - a childhhood cancer. He had two autologous (self donor) bone marrow transplants, but passed in August '99. (This is integral, I believe, to my wife's affair.) Chemotherapy and radiotherapy severely damage the marrow which necessitates transfusions of both red cells and platelets during both "routine" treatments and marrow transplants. But platelets are always needed more and they have a very short shelf life (five days). Even though platelets can be "spun out" of whole blood donations, it takes about 8 units of donated blood to get one unit of platelets, but there's an obvious desire to use platelets from a single person to minimize the problems with "pooled" units from multiple donors. <P>Because of what we learned going through our son's transplants, both my wife and I became registered on the Bone Marrow Donor network that tries to match patients with donors for allogenic transplants.<P>I continued to donate for other kids like my son because it's the right thing to do and because I'm CMV negative(cytomegalative virus ) which is important for patients with suppressed immune systems, which puts me in higher demand. But I also got picked off the Marrow network by the National Institutes of Health (which is right down the road from where I work in Rockville, MD.) because my HLA typing is somehow unique and meets the specific needs of certain patients. So I'm kind of "on call" at both NIH and Children's Hospital D.C. whenever I match up to a patient with specific platelet needs. Thus, I never donate whole blood anymore. I've never matched yet for a morrow donation.<P>Probably a longer answer than you wanted, but maybe someone will read this and be motivated to become a regular blood or platelet donor. Most major hospitals and the Red Cross have platelet donation facilities.<P>Dave (WAT)