Quote: The trick here can be found in threads like Franks
?? I'm looking
The ride is over. M 38 WAW 39 08/06 out to give WAW space Bomb 10/06 Back Home 2/07 New Bomb 4/17/07 WAW out 06/07 Trying again 09/07 Another Bomb 11/23/07 WAW moved back home 12/14/07 WAW moved back out 2/2/08 D 12 S 9
I've been through something VERY similar with my W - look over what GH was saying above - and I'll try to come back an lunch with what I have been doing with my W.
Sven
Never sacrifice the great for the good. Sometimes the beauty of grace is that it makes life not fair.
Quote: I called wife after work last night to return her call from the night before. That was probably a mistake. It seems this game she is playing is no matter what I do it is wrong.
Yes it is. Stop playing along.
Quote: She said she didn't want to talk to me then and I said ok talk to you later. This made her even madder.
No, in the future don't keep a constant plan to "talk later". If she calls and you can answer, do it. If you need to talk to her for some reason, some REAL reason, call her but this way you seem to ALWAYS end conversations with her by planning the next one needs to stop. It sounds needy.
Quote: She would not let me hang up and started telling me that I am never there when she wants to open up to me. (Talking about the 1 call I did not take the night before.)
Yep. You just have to understand this. She will TRY to blame you for everything and your behavior plays into this. She knows she can bait you. You fall for it every time. Stop falling for it.
W: You suck. I hate that you are never available when I need you.
Y: Sorry you feel that way, I really am. I try to be there for you but there are times when I can't.
Leave it at that. Notice you didn't apologize nor did you carry on defending yourself.
Quote: A couple hours later she called me again and was still very rude with me. I asked her what the problem was and she said she was in a pissy mood and was not happy with life right now.
Don't ask what her "problem" is. Be more compassionate and also more intelligent about this. You KNOW she's looking for a fight, and right about now so are you. You also know that she's feeling down. SO, instead of confronting her on her "issues", why not say "You sound upset right now and seem to be taking it out on me. I want to be there for you but I don't really like how you're talking to me. If you want to talk without being rude, I am here for you, but for now, I need to go."
Quote: I asked what she could do to make things better for herself and she replied with "I don't know". (I get alot of these.)
Thats because YOU can't make things better for her, only she can do that. You CAN make things better overall by being more of a "rock" and not reacting so emotionally to these daily events.
Quote: After about the second time about 5 years in the marriage, I closed all joint accounts and she got new cards just in her name. I bailed her out on these twice in the last 8 years. (big debt)
I am REALLY curious about this whole passage, and I have to wonder if it doesn't shed light on a whole lot that may be wrong with your M. You said YOU closed out the joint accounts and SHE got cards in just her name. YOU bailed HER out twice in 8 years.
Forgive me if I am somehow wrong, but when you're married, there should be a WHOLE lot more "us" and a whole lot less her/me when it comes to finances. You understand that while married, you basically are one person in terms of debt, etc. This whole idea of you bailing her out makes no sense to me and if you approached it this way with her, I can understand how she may have felt disconnected and looked down on. Sure, she may have overspent but your financial situation, whether it's her spending or yours is BOTH your problems and anything that gets done to bail you BOTH out...well, you get my point.
It seems like at least in this one area, you treated your W like a child. Her possibly acting like one is another story but it sounds to me like you never accepted her as an equal when it came to making financial decisions and that may have caused a lot of resentment in her. I know it did in my W and it took years for me to figure this out (long before the A and all this crap).
I suppose I am being pretty judgmental and reading a lot into this, but it seems like from this one issue, that there may be a sense from your W that you don't respect her.
I know I had to learn that just because I thought something should be done a certain way, i.e. the bills, etc, that is wasn't necessarily the "right" way to do something. When I stopped getting upset, and got down off my high-horse and just talked to my W about such things, it made it a lot better.
Just understand that being right and being married don't always go hand in hand because most often, being right is only a matter of perspective.
Quote: She told me that she didn't know if she could make it through b-day party and Christmas without me and the rest of life for that matter and she was mad about this.
This is good for sure. Don't play it up or react to it much. Express empathy and compassion but don't sieze onto this.
Quote: I asked if she wanted to trade places with me and she said "no I won't leave my kids. I said well if you just want me to pay for things for the next few weeks, I can't afford to because as she well knows, I am paying for all of the bills at her house, all of my bills, fixing up a junk old house and giving her 100 week in support over and above all of the other stuff I am paying. (this is all court order). She said she didn't want me to pay for things, she just wanted to tell me what was on her mind. I talked with her and listened to her concerns and kept my mouth shut on trying to give her solutions and she just seemed to get mad more and more as we talked.
Ok, first off, ease off on the "Mr. Fixit" stuff. Have you read Men are from Mars, Women are from Venus? If not, take two days off work and read it immediately! If so, then you know that women HATE this reaction we men tend to have towards them when they express their feelings/problems to us. For us men, we express problems because we want help in solving them. Women are helped simply by the act of expressing (or most of them are anyway).
I know you went on to say you listened, etc. That's good. Did you also validate her?
W: My life sucks. Our marriage sucks. I hate everything and everyone.
Reaction #1 (bad BTW)
Y: Your life doesn't suck. You have me and D and we love you. You don't hate EVERYONE, you just hate the situation and that can get better if we work on it!
Reaction #2 (Validating/Good)
Y: Yea, I can see why you would feel that way. Things can get pretty rough when you are in a situation like this. I hope you feel better soon.
In the first response, while expressing concern and trying to help, you also invalidated her feelings. You told her she was wrong to feel the way she does. She's NEVER wrong to FEEL the way she does and she usually doesn't want you to fix her when she feels down. She may want to lean on you but when, instead of just standing still and allowing her to put her weight on you, you build an elaborate leaning post, designed to allow her to lean whenever she feels like it and be comfortable...you get the picture.
SO, I wonder why, if you were truly listening and validating, she kept getting upset. Maybe she was just upset and it had nothing to do with you. That was another thing that was REALLY hard for me to get. I had to learn that not everything she was upset about had something to do with me, or how I reacted to what she said. Sometimes, oddly enough, there were OTHER things in her life that upset her. Go figure.
Quote: She seemed very rude to me and I told her so. She didn't make any apologies for being rude, she just said she was tired and ready to go to sleep.
Next time, instead of saying "Honey, you're being rude" and then just going on with the conversation, how about saying "Honey, I feel like you're being rude and I don't really want to talk when you're insisting on talking to me that way. Call me back if you want to be more polite."
There's no point in simply saying she's being rude if you're not going to do anything about it. It seems like her rudeness is a boundary for you that you may want to enforce, especially if you have done nothing to warrent it.
NOW, you have to be careful that what you perceive as rude is not just her expressing herself and that it truly is directed AT you. Also, sometimes there can be a give and take on this kind of thing and you don't want to come off as holier-than-thou if you have been rude (or she perceives you as having been) in the convo too.
Ok, here comes the 2x4 part, as you well know.
Quote: I said I would let her go and we would talk later. She agreed and we hung up.
WTF? What time was this? She said she was going to bed, right? Why did you suggest you would talk to her later? I don't get this. Maybe it's just a habit, like saying ILY, but it's annoying me, and I'm not even your W. Stop this.
Quote: I thought of something I had been meaning to ask her about 20 min. later and I tried to call back and she was on the phone.
Bull$hit x1000. You wanted to talk to her. Period. Whatever you wanted to ask her could have waited till the morning. You know it, I know it and she knows it. You either wanted to talk to her OR, as I suspect is the case, you wanted to see if she was really going to sleep. Geezus.
Quote: This made me nuts because she said she was going to sleep and here she was on the phone.
Guy, get it through your thick f--king head that she doesn't have to report to you what she does. She doesn't have to answer to you. She is a human being with her own ability to think and make decisions, not all of which require your approval. If she wants to talk to her sister, GF, or OM, or God forbid, someone calls HER to talk, what's she supposed to do, think "Well, I sure would like to talk to xxxxx right now but I told Jersting that I was going to sleep so I better do that right now before he gets upset."
WTH? You are not her master, nor are you her father, and even as her H, this idea that she didn't do EXACTLY as she said and she should be punished by you is a little, no, a LOT over the line. YOU ARE SEPERATED. That means she gets to do what she wants for now. Get that. Accept that. YOU are choosing to work towards a better R with her, and she is maybe doing the same thing but she will NOT probably conform to your ideal about how that should be done.
DROP ALL EXPECTATIONS NOW!!!!!
Quote: I thought I had control over her in these sitchs, but apparently I don't yet.
You really WANT control over her and it pisses you off that you don't have that. You really need to get a handle on this. You don't have to control yourself every time this kind of thing comes up if you just get it into your head that you don't control HER. Let go for God's sake. Don't give up, just let go.
Quote: I waited a few minutes, called back and she was still on phone. Waited about 10 minutes and called back she was still on phone, left message that I just didn't know what to say and thought it was wrong of her to be this way with me.
You're blowing it man. Being what "way" with you? Not answering the phone? Talking to another human being on the phone? Look man, not everything is about you. I know that's what hurts the most, but you have to understand that, and then embrace it as YOUR philosophy. Not everything is about HER. Once you understand this, it may start getting better.
Stop this childish behavior NOW! Let her be her own woman.
Quote: 15 minutes later I called back and she had shut off her phone.
At what point do you not get that she doesn't want to talk to you? My God, can't you just leave it alone? Why do you HAVE to keep pushing? Go to bed, go for a jog, play a video game, do SOMETHING other than obsess over this woman for 5 minutes. You're going to poison any chance you may have at making this work, you really are.
GIVE THE WOMAN SOME SPACE TO BREATHE!!!!!
Quote: I called the home phone just brewing at this time and asked why she had been that way and she said she just didn't want to talk to me.
W: I just didn't want to talk to you...
Y: OH, that's a relief because I thought for sure you were on the phone with OM and intentionally blowing me off. I thought you not answering the phone meant you hated me and didn't ever want to talk to me again. I'm glad it wasn't that. Goodnight honey...
Guess it didn't go that way.
WTH? "I guess you just don't care for me at all"????? WTH is
THAT? I know you were upset, but this little comment says a lot about how much each little interaction with her affects you. You got THAT from her simply not answering her phone? Wow. So what does it mean when she has an affair. If not answering the phone means she doesn't care for you at all...wow...the affair must mean she wants you dead.
Seriously, you HAVE TO EASE UP my friend or you will have a heart attack. She just didn't answer the phone. Period. Let it go. Please. For both your sakes.
Quote: Her reply..."your way off on that one." I said you probably don't want me to come over and talk and she replied no not tonight.
She's right and why the hell would you ask that? What would YOU want to go over and talk to her. Do you have ANYTHING else to do but pursue her? You seem to be totally obsessed. You CANNOT be this way if you want to have a chance at getting her back. You have to let her come to you a bit and this ain't getting it done, not by a long shot!
Quote: I said ok sleep well, talk to you later and we hung up.
FREAKING STOP WITH THE TALK TO YOU LATER STUFF. There may come a day when you WON'T talk to her later. Learn to sign off somehow without saying that.
Quote: I don't know why I said all of this, I guess just to let every one know some of the details of what is happening with me.
Because either you are a masochist or you are serious about getting help. You HAVE to post the bad with the good in order to get any real help at all...and then learn to stand tall and take those 2x4s when they come your way.
Quote: Forgive me if I am somehow wrong, but when you're married, there should be a WHOLE lot more "us" and a whole lot less her/me when it comes to finances. You understand that while married, you basically are one person in terms of debt, etc. This whole idea of you bailing her out makes no sense to me and if you approached it this way with her, I can understand how she may have felt disconnected and looked down on. Sure, she may have overspent but your financial situation, whether it's her spending or yours is BOTH your problems and anything that gets done to bail you BOTH out...well, you get my point.
It seems like at least in this one area, you treated your W like a child. Her possibly acting like one is another story but it sounds to me like you never accepted her as an equal when it came to making financial decisions and that may have caused a lot of resentment in her. I know it did in my W and it took years for me to figure this out (long before the A and all this crap).
Yep, I cannot deny I have been an idiot in this part of our M. One of the things I am having the hardest time making myself right with.
Quote: I know you went on to say you listened, etc. That's good. Did you also validate her?
still trying to get better at this.
Quote: Don't ask what her "problem" is. Be more compassionate and also more intelligent about this. You KNOW she's looking for a fight, and right about now so are you. You also know that she's feeling down. SO, instead of confronting her on her "issues", why not say "You sound upset right now and seem to be taking it out on me. I want to be there for you but I don't really like how you're talking to me. If you want to talk without being rude, I am here for you, but for now, I need to go."
OK got it
Quote: Bull$hit x1000. You wanted to talk to her. Period. Whatever you wanted to ask her could have waited till the morning. You know it, I know it and she knows it. You either wanted to talk to her OR, as I suspect is the case, you wanted to see if she was really going to sleep. Geezus.
I get it, I just can't get this right for some reason.
Quote: Because either you are a masochist or you are serious about getting help. You HAVE to post the bad with the good in order to get any real help at all...and then learn to stand tall and take those 2x4s when they come your way.
Thank you, I was actually laughing at myself as I read through all of this. I don't mean that I was not taking this seriously, I was just laughing at what an idiot I can be. I have to have someone point out to me what I think I already know. Not sure where I am with W, but with your help, I will get better for me.
The ride is over. M 38 WAW 39 08/06 out to give WAW space Bomb 10/06 Back Home 2/07 New Bomb 4/17/07 WAW out 06/07 Trying again 09/07 Another Bomb 11/23/07 WAW moved back home 12/14/07 WAW moved back out 2/2/08 D 12 S 9
Hey, this is hard work and by you being here, posting stuff that makes you look like a stupid jerk sometimes, you are proving that in some way, you understand that you are anything but. You are someone who is looking for help and understands that help comes in many forms, sometimes nice and sometimes not.
Learning to take the good, happy, supportive posts with the occasional 2x4 in stride, as you did with this one, prepares you for being in a REAL relationship and not needing to get defensive everytime your W, or friend for that matter, challenges you on something.
Good for you.
Keep learning and realize that as much as it sucks, in some areas of this, trying isn't good enough. You just need to do it...or stop doing it, whatever is needed.
Quote: Come on, jersting, you KNOW you can do this!
Yes I know I can and I will. I will succeed in this and it will turn out good for me one way or the other.
The ride is over. M 38 WAW 39 08/06 out to give WAW space Bomb 10/06 Back Home 2/07 New Bomb 4/17/07 WAW out 06/07 Trying again 09/07 Another Bomb 11/23/07 WAW moved back home 12/14/07 WAW moved back out 2/2/08 D 12 S 9
that there may be a sense from your W that you don't respect her.
...WOW, let me just say that if you have GH giving you advice and from the long post he put on your thread he is helping you alot.He is a very wise man and you need to really take a hard look at your behavior and change,, and by change I do not mean change half heartedly or yeah geez b/c I have to for her to come back really , really change.
take a hard look at yourself and stop feeling so righteous and change,, she wil feel like you are really only doing this to win eher back( my H accused me of acting and then I told him well I should go to Hollywood) but they are genuinely hurt and even if you do not see it from her point of view everyting she is feeling to her is valid. And no you can not fix it for her she needs to feel stronger on her own but you by changing an help her to see that this does really affect you and matter to you, You need to do some real soul searching and be strong and stable and not feel sorry for yourself.
She feels lost right now and if you add to it she will seek help elsewhere. My first H used to treat me like a child and not be there for me,, and then be condescending like he was doing me a d*mn favor.
When she doesn't answer the phon eshe is feeling x, y or z and you can not know and the nshe turns of her phone cause you are not gigving her what she needs and then you say weel you really do not like me or whatever. If she really had no leftover feelings for you she would not even give you the time of day,
when I knew I was done with me XH I knew that I had no reason to speak to him and when I was feeling like maybe just maybe a tiny prat of me was bein gto hard on him and I should give him a snowballs chance in H*LL to prove himself low and behold more of the same behavior.
Have you read the DR and DB books if not then I suggest you go get them right now and a highlighter and put yourself under a MAGNIFYING GLASS AND CHANGE. Do alot of 180s and I mean alot of them and examine yourself and let go of all the behavior that gets yo nowhere.
This board is for YOU to grow andfor you to get better as a HUMAN BEING!!!!!!!
...it is not meant for you to find ways to manipulate your way back into her heart.
She needs to see real change and real RESPECT and real unconditional love for her to let armor down,,,,
I dunno much about your sitch but I took this time to post to you and I do not do it often b/c I feel it is hard for me to give real good advice but I am making my kids wait to go the YMCA to post to you,, I felt a strong urge to help you,,, I told my 4 kids to just give me 15 minutes I feel this strongly,, maybe you have a chance but you really need to stop what is not working,, if you got Gh in a mood to give a 4x4 then I tink you need to really work harder on this. You ahve all the time in the world ti be divorced like I was once told but you only have one chance to really save your m arriage and after that what?
I will find my past posts from a very smart lady tha blessed me with her knowledge and I will post them to you later tonite,, when I get back from swimming with my kids. I hop ethat you can dave yourself and you rm I really do and you are being given 2x4s b/c it is viable to really change and do something. I was pretty much praying for a Miracle to save my M and thanks be to GOD ,, I am currently piecing and it is a blessing along with hard work I would not trade for anything,, I had to fall flat on my face in order to really see where I was failing and I was failing him miserably,,,,,
Your Wife left for a reason and you need to be strong and change for you to beth ereason that she sees ,, maybe I acn trust him, maybe he CAN love me like I need and maybe just maybe I can trust him with my heart once more..
Like I said my XH ruined any chances of me being with him b/c he was justified in his behavior and he rescued me in his eyes when I di dnot need rescuing I needed somein to tlove me and respect me an treat m elike an equal with compassion and love.
I needed to be loved for me plain and simple to be loved for who I was and not to be treated as is he was doing me some sort of favor. I needed to be chosen b/c of my beauty not b/c he felt like he needed to take care of me. I neede to know I coul dbe me and grow and he woul dbe there to support me and be by my side not like he was my father and then i somehow owed him something for his help.
I will read more of your sitch later but you sound like oyu are goingg at thi slike my XH was and you wil fail if you do not stop.
I am not trying to be mean but I feel like you need to hear a Womans perspective we need to feel wanted and respected not treated like a child.
You are probably doing all that you do out of love but if it is not making her feel loved then you need to change something within you.. Sorry to be so hard on you sweetie but you are probably a great Man underneath all the confusion,, this will not be easy but if you are prepared to work hard you can accomplish anything,, I will check on you later. God bless...
