Divorcebusting.com Forums Open Forums Divorced, But Not Done Divorced but wanting her back

Cliff note version of my sit.

Married 15yrs, son 5, no physical interaction since son was conceived. We have drifted apart over the past 5 years. Neither of us have been meeting each others needs. W is done. She cares for me but, does not love me, does not want to work on R.

We sleep in separate rooms, I am the primary wage earner, work at home dad and primary care taker and domestic house keeper (cooking, cleaning, shopping etc.) She works full time, but I do not ask her for any money. Her money is for her to do as she pleases.

I have been trying my hardest since Nov '06 to repair our marriage and be the guy she deserves and treat her the way she deserves to be treated and trying my best to feel her needs. We have had our ups and downs since I started the DBing. She has noticed the differences in me and appreciates the effort, but says it is to late.

She has not reciprocated filling any of my needs and every few weeks or so, the taker in me starts feeling jealous and wants attention and I will confornt her saying I love to be there for you and I love to take care of you, but I do not get anyting in return from you. She says she does not reciprocate, becasue she does not want to mislead me into thinking she has feelings for me or that she wants to work things out. I know a lot of the reason she treats me this way is because I continue to allow it to happen. I continue to always be there for her and take care of her and continue to do so without receiving anything in return.

We had to move out of the house where we were living in (Utah), because it was being sold at he first of this month. I took it as a good opportunity for me to move to Ca. and open a business related to my work, that I already do from home. I also thought it to be a great time for us to get separated, since I have grown tired of feeling like she is taking advantage of me.

She said I could go, nut our S would have to stay with her. I could not allow him to be put into daycare for 10 hours a day while she is at work. Especially since he spends all his time with me everyday. We went back and forth on this for a few days and it only got uglier. She finally told me why don't you stay her and we will get a D and you can have Nick (our son) mon-fri and I will take him on the weekends. I agreed to this and I filed for the D that night online. The day we had the papers signed and handed into the court. We are no just waiting for them to arrived in the mail signed by the judge.

Well there is my story (condensed the best I could) and her is my quest that I need help with.

I am still deeply in love with my wife and I would take her back in a heart beat if I knew that she would treat me like a friend and not like a slave and that she would reciprocate filling some of my needs, not even the physical or intimate ones, just the ones like friendship, appreciation, communication. We go out to eat almost every night when she gets of work and we do things together as a family on the weekends. We are still very amicable and friendly as can be, but there is obvious tension between us. I am confident that she would move back in with me if I gave her the chance (she can not afford to be out on her own), but it would be for the wrong reason. I want to win her heart back, but not sure how to do it. Do I continue to pursue her with my kindness or do I stop taking her out to eat at nights and allow her to see how much I did/do for her (hopefully she would see) and how much she needs me in her life? Where do I go from here, what steps do I take?

You have a situation that I understand, but it's not an easy one. You feel that you gave and gave and just wanted to receive. The problem is that she isn't in the relationship, so why should she give you anything? When she said she didn't feel anything for you and that she didn't want to lead you on, that's what she meant. It is a little silly to expect someone that doesn't want the relationship to give into it.

So, my suggestion: Take that energy that you've put into being her slave and put it into getting your own life and making the best one possible for your child. Right now she isn't worth all that effort. That's not to say that you can't be friendly and show you care in little ways, but you need to find your own life again. Find activities away from her. Take your son to things. Meet other people with similar interests. She needs to see that you have a life that doesn't revolve around her. You just might find that if you quit doing everything that she'll take up the slack. If not, you might find that she has nothing to offer you.

Me

You know you are right. She tells me she does not want a relationship, but I am just to thick headed or better yet, in to much denial to accept it. I do need to just let her be and see what happens and stop trying to always be there or taking care of her. Now, I just got to find out how I can get myself to break free.

I have been rather busy the past couple of days with things (looking for a new building for my business, totaling my car in an accident) that have drawn my attention away from missing my wife and I think it has actually been very beneficial to our sit.

Yesterday, I meet my wife at Starbucks to drop off our son to her, for her weekend visitation and to get my daily dose of "Venti Carmel Light Frappuccino, No Whip, No Drizzle (yeah I am hooked). And she asked me if I wanted to go get dinner (she never asks, it's always me asking), I was kind of surprised. But, more surprised at my response. I told her I would love to but, I had to go meet a guy to pick up my new PPC phone (I easily could have done it the next day). I was shocked at my response and sort of proud. She was also, she was at a loss of words for a half a second.

Later that night my son called from her cell phone to say hi to me (she has not had him call me in the past 2 weeks since we have been separated, I always call them). Me and him chatted for about 10 minutes, which for those of you with 5 year olds will agree that is a long time for them to talk on the phone. My son then asked my wife if she wanted to talk to daddy and surprisingly she said yes, she usually says no. Me and her had casual conversation for about 10 minutes also. At the end of our call I told her to have a very restful and pleasant evening and she said you to, oh and hey if your not busy tomorrow do you want to go get breakfast with us. Once again I was shocked. It has been forever since she has initiated the idea of us going somewhere. It is always me. Needless to say I agreed. I did not want to say no twice in 2 days.

Anyway, everyone says to back off, give her space, etc., etc. But it is a tough habit to break. Especially for those of us that are co-dependent on the companionship of our spouse like myself. But, from pure dumb luck and the fact that my brain has had to focus on other matters besides my R, I have been forced into backing off and giving her space. And you know what. I am seeing small signs that it is true. That is what I need to do. It won't be so much of a challenge for me, now that I know it can have positive affects. And the fear I have had about giving her space and that she will perceive that as if I have moved on and I am interested in her anymore, is fading.

Listen to the advice of other. Dare to go against your instinct. Be patient. Be positive. Stop feeling sorry for yourself. That is what I am telling myself now.

My wife has been living with a friend of hers since we separated, in a small 2 bedroom apartment. Her friend is going to start having her 2 kids live with her and so my wife has to find somewhere else to live. She has an application in with the state for subsidized housing, but there is a 2 month waiting list. She has another friend with a room for her, but that friend already has 4 people living there and I would make it hard for her to have our son stay with her during her days of visitation. She hinted around to me if I had looked into getting a place of my own yet (I am staying at my mothers until I sucure a location for my business). I told her I was not looking for a place yet, not until I know where I am opening my store at because I want to have a house close to the business. She said when do you think that will be? I said I have no idea probably a couple of months at least, she said oh really that long.

A part of me thinks she wants to move back in together, but I can not say for sure. I know she was not happy with her currently living situation and now it seems to be getting worse.

I do not mind us moving in together, but I do not want us to return to the old ways of me doing everything and taking care of all her needs. Is there a way to move back in together and set some guidelines or a POJA to keep this from happening.

Should I approach her about moving back in together or allow her to do it? I think us being under one roof again could make it easier to work on things together. But, I also know it could be destructive and put us back to where we were.

wow..........

I don't even know. I'm not one to give any kind of advice on this as I'm a complete idiot about it.

lovncela,

From the sounds of it she's definately fishing about moving back in with you. As far as you asking her to move back in w/you - only you can decide whats best. It just seems all this 'coming around' for her, as far as the dinner/breakfast invite, the phone calls, all coincide with her living situation. I just wonder if she's buttering you up because she needs a place to stay?

I can only speak from the experience of my own situation, and found that my EX would act the same when he was in a tight spot and looking for me to bail him out (which I did too many times) only to be found I was being taken and used. Not a good feeling. While you may have the best intentions for her and the two of you, it may not necessarily be whats best and could very well put you back where you were.

Has she made any changes? Not on the surface, but really put forth some action or has she played the pity card for the most part? I'm not trying to discourage you at all, but you may want to hold off and not rush into it unless you feel 100% sure you can deal with what 'may or may not' come of it.

I know how confusing and painful it can all be so either way I'm wishing you the best of luck.

hellkat I appreciate your message. That is what I like about the people on the boards, we are all like family and look out for each other.

I know she is not trying to butter me up. The invites and the calls etc. have/had been occurring weeks prior to her knowing that she needs to move. There is no hidden agenda, with her actions. But, I am not sure what her intentions are for moving back in. But, I will definitely need to know before if she does so.

She has made some changes. For 6 months I have tried to get my wife to include me more in her life. Trying to get her to call me on occasion when she leaves work, invite me do go out to do things with her, talk to me able the little things in life. More or less treat as well as she treats her friends and not like a stranger. We have been separated for 6 weeks now and things between us have improved greatly. I was afraid when we separated the only time I would see her or have communication with her was to exchange our S. But, oddly enough she has been inviting me to go out to eat, go to the movies, go to the park, go shopping etc. She has begun to call me on her drive home from work. We are having conversations about the little things in life. She is now filling my request to be treated as well as she treats her friends. Funny thing is she is starting to neglect her friends and is spending most of her free time with me and our son.

I would not (hopefully) move back in together until we have addressed the issues that tore us apart. I do not want to move back in to the same situation.

I, my W and our S have been spending some time together. Thursday she called to talk to our S after work as she does every day and asked if she could come see him, because she was missing him. I told her we had plans to go to the movie together (he had his kindergarten shots, so I told him I would take him) but, if she would like she is invited to go. She said she would love to, but was hungry and wanted to know if we wanted to meet to go to eat first. We agreed and did so. We had a great evening out, the three of us. Very playful and interactive. We followed her to her house, she had some business mail of mine and when we got there she was very cold to both me and our son. Kind of a 180 from 15 minutes before.

I had mentioned to her during our outing, that I really wanted to go to see the new "Bourne" movie at the drive-in movie (something we used to do almost weekly before) over the weekend and that I did not want to go alone with our S and asked if she would be interested. She said that that would be fun, let's do it tomorrow on Friday. After the cold send off we received on Thursday, I kind of just figured our outing for Friday would not happen. To my surprise, when she called on Friday to talk to S, she asked me where we should go eat before the movie. We once again had a great afternoon and evening together, about 5 hours worth. We'll when I dropped them off at her house (son was staying over for her weekend visitation) she once again became very cold to me. She had even locked herself out of her house and I got a window open for her so she could get in. To which I did not even receive a thank you. I told her I had a really fun evening and thanked her for going to the movie with me and spending time with me. To which she replied half heartedly, yeah I had fun also. Then she closed the door in my face.

I understand the roller coaster syndrome, but why the instant cold should when our time together is coming to an end? I know she is not happy with her living conditions. Could it be because she hates to go home to it? Or could she maybe be enjoying our time together and gets sad when it comes to an end. Or does the end of our time together make her think that it would be nice if we were going home together, but I will not go back to living with that man. He caused me too much pain and I will not go back to living with him.

My wife at times did the same thing, we could have a fairly decent outing or something, but near the conclusion of it she would turn very cold. Then basically a couple months went by when we hardly did anything together, then for the last 2 weeks, absolutely no talking or seeing each other. Now for the last 3 days, you would think I was her best friend in the world. So what I think I am saying is that she probably is enjoying herself when the 3 of you are together, and then when the day/evening is about to be over she does get "cold", she could just be realizing what she is missing.
Just let her have her time and space, enjoy the time together but don't worry about how she acts, especially if it is that way only at the end of spending time together, enjoy the time she is happy.