Divorcebusting.com Forums Open Forums For Newcomers This is not looking good! (Long post...)

Also, if you suffer from "Nice Guy" issues, there are two good books written just for you that many on this forum have found valuable:

"No More Mr. Nice Guy"
"Hold Onto Your N.U.T.S."

Both are available as ebooks

"No More Mr. Nice Guy" is not what the title may imply, it's not telling you to become a bully. It's a book written for guys who fall victim to a particular dynamic of "giving to get", making "covert contracts", etc. Worth a read

Accuray

Thanks accuray,

I've got NMMNG and I've begun to work through it but it is all happening at breakneck speed. DBing, drama triangles, NMMNG - these are things I never even knew existed until a month ago. Throw in the stress of the actual cause of the problem and I'm more than a bit frazzled at the moment!
I did do the 5 languages questionnaire and got the following
5 Words of Affirmation
7 Quality Time
2 Receiving Gifts
6 Acts of Service
10 Physical Touch

Which fits in nicely with the nice guy profile about being bad at receiving things. I'm going to order the 5 languages and HOTYN books asap too.

I hear you about the whirlwind. Men are usually "fixers", so when things fall apart you feel like you better put it back together "now". It's hard to see that time is actually your ally here, and nothing has to happen overnight.

I think I wrote this to you before -- a lot of your angst is rooted in losing control. Your W pulled away a lot that you assumed would be present. That represents a major loss of control and a feeling of freefall. Trying to restore the marriage NOW feels like your shortest path to restoring that control, and that's why you fixate on it.

You CAN find other things to help restore that control that don't involve W. The BEST thing you can do is to start setting small goals and meeting them. For you, you could set a goal to reduce your debt by X every (2 weeks, month, whatever). You could set a goal to create a budget for yourself, and then measure yourself against how well you live by it. For me it's been weight loss and getting in shape. The point is to make them achievable, measurable, and about you. After a few weeks of hitting your goals, you'll feel better about yourself, more in control, and that will make you more attractive to W, which helps your cause. Finishing reading those books could be a goal, put a date on it. Give yourself a taste of success in something OTHER than your relationship right now.

It will help, it's worth it.

Accuray

My apologies, I confused a couple of your details with roughenough -- never mind the budget stuff, find goals that make sense! Sorry!

Accuray

She didn't seem very conflicted yesterday! Did I miss something? As far as I could see she was in full victim mode, 'I am doing this for me and to move forward in my life. I think I push too hard and intoxicate people with my personality (she did actually say that, I did manage not to lol), so I need to learn to be who I want to be'. Once again she was trying everything she could think of to convince me that it was game over, whilst I said OK, but I see this as an opportunity not and ending and other things like that.

Yes, you are missing the signs of being conflicted because you have nothing to compare this to -- that's not your fault. We tend to focus on the negative and overlook the positive. In many cases the WAS doesn't look back for quite a while. They tell you that they made the right decision and "act as if" everything is great and you're forgotten. In your case, she's talking to you, she's telling you how badly she's feeling, she's telling you she doesn't like being single, she told you that she misses talking to you! She came by the house and didn't like that you had packed up her stuff. Most importantly, she told you not to sell the house.

If she was truly done with you and ready to move on, she would avoid talking to you at all, would never tell you that she's not doing well, and wouldn't care what you did with the house -- most likely she'd want to sell so she could get some money.

Moving out and getting an apartment was a drastic measure, that shows you the extent of her discontent. Don't mistake my comments to mean that she's not gone -- she is, and you can certainly do things that will guarantee she doesn't come back. All the same, I think she doesn't really WANT to be gone, she wants to see evidence from you that you are a safe place to return. Once again, you can't tell her, you have to show her.

I can't tell from your postings if you are arguing with her when she says it's over. One of the very important things you can try to do is establish common ground -- make her feel like you're in this together. If she says she was unhappy in the marriage, tell her there were things you were unhappy about too. Tell her you don't want to go back to that marriage, you want to move forward in a different one and then leave it at that. Also validate her feelings, but not in a patronizing way, she really IS hurt. Also, make it clear to her that she can have the space she needs and that it's OK. This will be a big relief for her.

You might think you're giving her permission to date other men, etc. but you're not -- you can't control that, so your permission in that regard doesn't matter. By telling her that having space is OK, you stop being the antagonist. Right now you are someone who is disappointed in her, and she doesn't like that. Think how relieved she'll be if you drop the rope and can be supportive? That is another thing that clears the deck and makes you approachable again versus someone she has to keep pushing away. You don't have to plan a big speech -- just say "I understand you want space and I will respect that. If you want to talk, I'm here". Then stop pursuing her and stop arguing your point of view or talking about what YOU want. Just let it drop. She'll come around.

Accuray

Well that's encouraging as I do seem to be learning something at least! I did all say pretty much all the things that you mentioned but still got the "I'm done" speech after. I'm struggling to remain optimistic that she'll come around but I'm going to keep going with all you're book suggestions, IC, working on myself and so on and see what happens.
Right now, I think what will happen is that we won't talk for a while and then she'll start with the house selling again. I hope I'm wrong!

Mab just read (most) of your sitch.

This stuck out to me.

Why would you allow her to do something you knew she was not ready for or didn't want for the sake of your own way?

What if she didn't want kids...ever?

If she doesn't want kids what kind of an environment is that for kids?

If she wanted you to drive a pink car. You don't want to drive a pink car do you? Let's just say driving a pink car would be very uncomfortable for you and every day you get in it you feel like you are going to hop out of your skin.

BUT you do it because your W wants you to drive a pink car.

Why would someone who says they love you make you do such a thing?

Why would you do it?

See where I am going?

This is unhealthy on BOTH sides. The person sacrificing or abdicating is doing it for selfish reasons they hope to get what they want eventually.

The person accepting the sacrifice is equally to blame.

How much more of the same happened in your M?

What happens when someone keeps sacrificing and then doesn't get the prize?

How do they feel about the person they are sacrificing for?

Think about it Mab.

Thanks Truegritter,

Your post was extremely hard for me to read and has left me on the verge of a complete meltdown for the last 3 hours.

I think the question you posed is critical to the situation I'm in and why I'm sat here contemplating a lonely saturday night watching TV on my own or going to the cinema alone instead.

OK, here we go, I hope I can explain this properly. This is a long and difficult post for me to write...

My wife has always had a fear of losing her self identity. Her last boyfriend talked of proposing and she ran away. After we got married, she took over a year to change her surname to mine and then only when I said I would really like it if she did. She has never changed her name in professional circles but this is not uncommon in science.

She has always felt that having a child would completely rob her of her identity. She would become 'just another Mom', instead of an independent woman. Despite the fact that she works with many extremely successful mothers and I offered to put my career on hold for our potential family, I think this has been one step too far for her. She enjoys being around kids but has never felt maternal (I think her mother also had a role in this because during a conversation they in her 20's her mother told her she never expected kids from her).

I did know her feelings and I have always wrestled with how to deal with it. I remember late one evening at one of her family parties we were both drunk, we were discussing our plans for the future and she started shouting about how she never wanted kids and ran inside. I broke down in tears because I couldn't understand how my wife could be so devoted to her family and yet would refuse to start OUR family. Since that evening I always hoped that maybe her biological clock would start ticking and that she would be able to overcome her worries.

I never pushed her in any way about starting a family but after a minor crisis which led us to counselling for the first time we did discuss it at length because it was highlighted as an issue in the one session we went to. After discussing it at length outside MC, we BOTH decided that now was a good time to try. Almost all of our mutual friends were having children. Both her younger and my younger brothers had started families. I was worried about my age (I'd be in my late 50's by the time our first child left home) and she felt it was a good time in her career to be able to do it. She started taking folate supplements of her own volition and I got myself to the gym, started losing weight, and our sex life was better than it had been in years. Things were going great until she actually thought she may be pregnant. She was devastated and was really worried about the fact she still didn't want a baby and that I did. So, if we did have children she would resent me and if we didn't I would always resent her. At the time I tried to mollify her by saying we didn't have to do anything if she didn't want but two weeks later after another argument based on her family she left.

Since that time I don't think I have helped the situation and I believe she has lost a lot of respect for me. We have discussed the whole child issue since she left and she is now saying she may want children in the future but not now. Due to my now crippled self esteem (which has always been low) it is difficult for me not to take that as I may want children with someone else but not you.
My response to her at the time was that I would 100% support her decision in this, it was her body and I would happily accept whatever she wanted both now and in future. I then followed it by saying having spent two weekends with my brothers small children I wasn't 100% sure anymore anyway! I said this jokingly as I was trying to keep the situation light but on reflection it may have been a bad thing to say.

Were there other areas of our marriage in which this sort of disagreement was happening? Certainly our social life had not been great in recent years but she always said she was happier spending time at home with me rather than going out so I thought it was OK. I know I made mistakes by not taking her out enough but I have apologised for that repeatedly to no avail.
I have also suffered from depression and panic attacks due to work issues which I never faced up to until now. I believe they fit in with the nice guy syndrome I'm looking in to. Previously, I had pretty much ignored them because I felt that I could rely on my wife to help me through but that doesn't seem to be the case anymore.

Right now, I'm completely lost. She refuses to discuss things any further. She just talks about being done and how she is convinced she is better off without me. In the meantime I am floundering around trying to hold it together, spending a small fortune GALing, reading self help books like they are going out of fashion whilst desperately clinging to the hope that she doesn't actually mean what is coming from her mouth. All I want to do is address the issues whilst every single piece of advice (and again I really want to thank everyone who has contributed here) I have received says stay away and give her time. Well, everyone that is apart from my family who just want me to divorce her asap as they can see what a state I'm in.

I would bring this up with your W only if it's a deal-breaker for you, other wise I would never bring it up to your W again. She knows your feelings and if she wants to have a child she will bring it up.

Love yer for thee person she is, not at the potential mother of your children.