Recently, my life has been resembling a romantic farce on a grand scale.

I've been meeting with my wife once or twice a week to discuss the issues remaining for the separation and eventual divorce. Many of these talks side-track into emotional issues, inevitably. With a little distance, we've even been able to talk about these things in an approximately civilized way. That's good, right?

One of the issues we've had to decide is whether I'm going to drop the divorce court case that I started several months ago. Basically, my wife and I agreed that I would file a case so that we could attach a court order that took the place of the protective order she took out against me originally. The only kind of case that can be filed before we've been separated for at least six months is an at-fault divorce, so that's what I used. Per normal procedure, she filed an at-fault counter-suit at the same time.

Now, several months later, the circumstances have changed. The substitute protective order doesn't really have much power; the pending court cases are causing our lawyers to use money faster; and neither at-fault case can really go to completion (because the grounds can't be proved.) So my wife has proposed, for some time now, that we drop the existing suits while we continue to negotiate a settlement agreement, which is needed to complete a no-fault divorce.

Anyway, the conversations have gradually drifted away from the practical details (which we weren't really managing to agree on, anyway), and into the more emotional, what-went-wrong areas. I've been indulging her in that, thinking that she needed it in order to let go of some of the anger and move toward agreement.

Well, at the last meeting, last Tuesday, she mentioned that she thought that, because of my difficulties expressing emotion (which are real), she tended to judge things based on my actions. Then, she let it be known that she feels that she did some things wrong, and she'd consider trying again, more or less. I told her that, given that she took out a protective order against me, I didn't see how I'd be able to do that.

And this morning, it suddenly occurred to me that dropping the divorce suit might seem to her like an action, signaling that I don't want a divorce! Now I'm even more confused than before.

I've exchanged e-mails with her about this during the day, and I'll probably call the lawyer to drop the suit tomorrow. She has assured me that she respects my feelings (although I didn't call the feeling "horror" to her face). It was just surreal to have it come full circle once again (just like it used to when we were married.)