Divorcebusting.com Forums Open Forums For Newcomers I am scared that I messed up...

You lead. You show her by your actions that you see her issues (validate) and are working on bettering yourself. Don't get defensive, have expectations, keep score or mind read. Don't let her mind-read or catastrophise things either. Listen for these words/phrases, "You just think," You believe..." "You never/always" or words like totally, devastated.

This ties into the next question...



You can be intimate by letting your wife know your thoughts, feelings, concerns, issues and goals. Let her in all your rooms: work, hobbies, friends, church, kids activities, sports, interests etc.

You can handle it.

Cheers

Thanks Bill,

I don't plan on defending myself, she is most often correct in what she blames me for, and I openly accept it. However, I have not had a chance to provide my view on things with regards to her actions over the years.

When do I get my turn to open up about my pain...?

When she's ready to work on the M. Until then, you are fighting a losing battle on this issue IMO.

Does going to an MC constitute working on the M?

Should be, but depends. Did she say she would go to MC? If yes, for what reason did she say she would go?

I'm not sure I understand. Are you saying that you have "never" over the years had opportunity to provide your view on things, or are you saying that recently you've not had a chance to provide a view on things?

I do understand the desire to want to justify yourself b/c I am the world's worst about that. But, a WAW will not listen and the more you try to tell her she's wrong about her POV, the more angry she will become and the farther away you will push her. In time you may have the right opportunity or maybe even with a MC, but don't try it now or without guidance from a C. I personally don't think MC do much for a couple unless they are familiar with the DB program and go hand in hand with it. Otherwise, it may cause more trouble than solve problems.

I know you want to express your hurt feelings, but again, I think she will not listen b/c she is at that "stage" and has had it!

Agree with the above. Trying to explain things now comes across as defending yourself and/or she will see it as an attack.

The best thing to do now is LISTEN to her. You can't make this 'all about you' right now. If you try and present 'your side of the story' it will come across negatively. In all likelihood, this is how it will come across to her.

Although time doesn't go fast enough for any of us here when it comes to wanting our marriages restored, six months is a short time since your bomb. The word patience cannot be overemphasized. We all want to 'fix this' immediately, especially being men. It can't be done. The key is to make changes within yourself and allow your wife to see them without you trying to sell her on it and without you trying to get her to see your side of it.

The couples here who are successful in making it to piecing, IMO, let go of the rope, go back to being themselves with improvements and, somewhere along the way, their wives sniff it out and slowly make their way back.

Hang in.
FIB

Thanks for all your advise guys, I really appreciate it.

Just to catch up on what has been going on, three nights ago my W started to talk about R and M. It has been almost 2 weeks since we talked about it other then with the MC over a week ago. As I had to leave to go to a meeting in 15 minutes, I told her that if she really wanted to talk we could when I got home.

When I returned from the meeting she still wanted to talk so I started by letting her know that I understand how I hurt her and have been working on myself to become a better man. I also let her know about some things that I felt over the years and how she too had hurt me and explained how it felt and how I dealt with it by withdrawing.

She seemed to understand some of it but still lay a lot of blame on me for this mess.

We talked for a few hours and we opened many doors that had been closed. We both cried then decided to go to bed as we were both exhausted.

For the last 2 days she has been very friendly with me, no touching or anything, but I know this may take some time.

I have been reading many threads and noticed that the focus needs be on detaching. At first I didn't know if I could do it but I started to look at my life and started thinking about what my life would be like without her and realized that I will still live, I will still have my son. So I have detached, during our discussion 3 nights ago I hold told her that I am working on improving myself so that "my next relationship" is much superior to our current relationship. She looked at me puzzled so I explained that I would like my next relationship to be with her but I cannot make that decision for her and that should she decide not to move forward with me then I would find someone else that would enjoy being with the new me. I told her I had no desire to go back to our R and M the way it was and that my next R and M would be much different.

I am confident that I will be happy no matter what happens between us.

Yesterday my S and I went with my W to her 5K run to cheer her on. Several days before the event, she said that it is such a short run that there is no reason we have to get up early to go with her. I told her we would we normally only went to the longer races.

After leaving her at the start line we went to the 1K point and cheered her on as she passed, then we made it over to the finish area and waited for her at the 4.75K point. When she passed I yelled GO MOMMY GO, WE LOVE YOU...opps that slipped.

After the race, we all went for breakfast and she said that she was glad we both came. When we got home my S and I went to play upstairs while my W relaxed in the living room. After lunch my S went to a friends house and I came home and worked out while
my W got ready to go to a friends house for a Girls afternoon.

She left to go to her friends and I went to pick-up our S. She called me to tell me that there was some kind of event going on not too far from our house and that if I was looking for something to do with S then we should go see what was going on.

So we went and found that it was a family skate day at the skateboard park. They had a national team there performing stunts, a BBQ (free hot dogs) and prizes. My S (6yrs old) loved it. We stayed most of the afternoon just watching these amazing kids.

We came home and S was watching a movie and I went of FB and ended up chating with an old girl friend that I had worked with 20 years ago. She had mentioned that her and her husband had separated over a year ago and that she is planning on moving back in with him. I explained my situation with her and she suggested we meet for a coffee that evening so that she could give me some advise as a WAW.

My W came home and our S and I told her about our afternoon and she said that although she had a good time, she would have much rather spent the afternoon with us at the skatepark. I told her that I was going out for a coffee with a friend for about an hour. She questioned who, and I told her a girl I used to work with 20 years ago that I and chatted with on FB that afternoon.

Just before I left she had asked me if I had a problem with this guy emailing her music that she mentioned earlier that week. I said no, that he had been emailing her music for sometime as they both have the same taste in music.

Met-up with the old girlfriend/colleague from about 20 years ago for coffee.

She is a WAW and had been separated from her H for just under a year, he has moved across the country 2 months ago for work when she had told him that she would be willing to move with him and start fresh together with their 2 kids and work on the M together.

Their sitch is very similar with the exception that the husband was involved in an EA. She told me about how she was feeling neglected and un-loved and finally gave up on the marriage, but had stayed with him for 2 years before she actually dropped the bomb. He then owned up to having not 1 but 2 EA for almost a year. But when hit with the bomb, he ended the EA right there and said that he wanted to work on the M. He pursued her, begged her, and pleaded with her and with all of his efforts pushed her further away. She told me that I needed to give my W space and simply concentrate on my S and me. When she started to see the changes he was making in his life and that he was over her and moving on, this is when she started to realize that she too had to make some changes in her life and realized that she still loved him.

They started going to counseling and were working on the R before he got the job offer across the country. They decided that it would make a great fresh start and decided to do it together. She did say that she was still affraid that life may go back to what it was in the past but did say that she did want to take the risk for the family and that if things did not go back to what they were, then they would have a great future together and that was worth the risk.

When I got home my wife asked how my coffee was and I simply said it was good. She then made a comment about something on my facebook page and that I have not posted much on their in quite some time. I asked her if she was checking up on me...I told her that I don't post much about myself on there that I used it to connect with old friends.

She probed more about my coffee "date" as she put it and I told her about my friends situation and did not reveal any of the advice she gave me.

We then went to bed.

Well had another talk about the R last night, I tried to steer around it but she insisted that we talk about it because we are both learning from it.

One of her complaints over the years is that she plans everything and I just follow along. So, I did a 180, I used to love to dance at weddings and parties, but over the years, I didn't seem to want to do it as much, I am guessing because of the depression. Well, a show band that plays a lot of 80 music is playing this weekend so I decided to ask my W if she wanted to go.

I texted her asking if she could arrange for the babysitter (daughter of her friend) to look after S this Saturday so that we could go out. She replied sure, what did I have in mind. I told her about the band and that we could go dancing. She was confused because this is something that we never did before, except at wedding, and company parties.

It sounded like at first she was interested, but then she sent me a text with reviews of the band (1 good and 1 bad). Then she sent me a text at lunch saying that she watched videos of the band and said that it looked cheesy.

She called and said that she didn't think it would be fun and said that she did not want to do that but did want to go out. I then asked her if she had any ideas then. She said we could talk about it when she got home.

After we put S to bed, she brought up my idea to go dancing and she questioned why that activity. I told her because we both enjoy dancing, whenever this type of music was played at events she would get up and dance so I thought it would be fun and we would not have to talk about the R or M.

This talk turned into a talk about the R and we both brought up stuff about the past once again. And once again, I had to tell her that I apologize for my mistakes and understand that she is hurt by what I did, etc, etc.

And then once again, I brought up the things that she did that hurt me and then said how it still hurts that she has not apologized to me. She then told me that she can't because she is still angry at me and herself and is numb to my pain.

She said that she does not want to feel this way and that she is hoping that her IC (first appointment today) will help her deal with this so that we can move on to the next steps in fixing our R and M.

I guess this is progress. I told her that until she is over her anger that we should not continue with these talks of R and M. But she insists that it is helping us figure things out. I feel that it is not, because we keep talking about the same stuff and she can't move past it yet.