John – I don’t think you have a clue how much my heart goes out to you. BUT you ARE going to make it. It is all about how you frame it right now. Sometimes the suggestions we see on here seem trite and frankly beyond our capability at this point in time, but they are not. There is truly wise counsel here. The one thing you absolutely need to understand is that you need to create a life for yourself. I can only speak from my limited experience, but here’s the awful behavior I was engaged in: I would clean up my attitude for 3 days by being happy and jovial then on day 4, I would be looking for feedback and positive results. If I didn’t get it, I would explode and make stupid comments to my H. See, I was only making changes to get the results I wanted from my H. There really wasn’t any inner “cleaning.” There were a few VERY WISE people on this forum who pointed that out to several of us.
So, I made goals for myself. True goals for myself. Some of these goals address his basic complaints, some address things I just always wanted to do.
I am intensely shy. I come off as standoffish, but truly am just horribly shy and have a major problem with security. So first thing I did was sign up for a cooking class. Instead of signing up with a friend who would have gladly gone with me, I went by myself. (It wasn’t nearly as bad as I dreaded).
I signed up for a gym membership. Now, when I first looked at gyms, I wanted the one where I could hide as much as possible. Instead, I joined the very social one.
I am a homebody. I would love to stay there and never leave (part of the shyness thing that is further exasperated by being in a new city). I have committed to one day a week at the theatre and another day out a week just doing something fun. So far, I have stuck with it.
I used to get my nails done every week. I stopped because I, for some reason, thought that it bothered my H. Well, I loved it! And now I am going back.
There is a list of about 10 things so far but I won’t continue to bore you with the details. The point is, who do you want to be??? When you think about the things you’ve always wanted to do, what are they? If there are certain behaviors or feelings in life that you think are holding you back, identify them. Then face your fears square in the face. It is so empowering!!!! It doesn’t have to be a grand gesture. My goodness, nothing above is grand, IN THE LEAST. Your goals only need to satisfy who you want to be and what you want to change.
You are going to have bad days. Probably a lot of them. I am so very sorry for that. But you have to start with the baby steps and start getting your life back. You mention some feelings of insecurity. How have those feelings limited your life? What would you do if those limitations were lifted? Go LIFT THOSE LIMITATIONS. You can absolutely do it. Your self-worth is NOT dependent upon what your wife decides for your life, it is about what YOU decide for yourself.
Please take care of yourself. There are a lot of people here who care.
