If everyone will indulge me I am going try to start a journal and planning spot. I am not a gifted writer but this is a time of growth for me so here goes. I hope other's may bennefit from this and I look forward to input to help me in my efforts me rebuild my marraige.
My Wife and I have been marraied for 18 years and truly have struggled with closeness and intimacy for the last 13 years.
I need to take most of the blame for the troubles in our relationship though no all...Perhaps an 80/20 split. This is a good thing in that I have controll over and can work on my self. After all if all the problems were with wife it would leave me little room to be a DB practiconer and improve myself.
My Wife let me know in September that she needed to move out and was shopping for a house for her and the kids.
To be continued...
[ December 17, 2001: Message edited by: Eric Making Plans ]
I have two Great Kids ages 8 and 10. My Wife is a good person and I am lucky to be married to her and I look forward to the day that she feels same way about me.
Although SBT and DB does not focus much on the past. I think it would be good to mention some things about our history. The first of which is still hard for me to talk about but I hope will be of help to others.
10 years ago I had an affair...Yuck it is something that I wish that had never happened because of the hurt it has caused. But it is one of the experiances in my life that has forged me into who I am today. I will do a separate page on the affair to give more detail. In brief though I did a terrible job telling my wife about the affair and even a worse job in helping us heal from it. No DB skills at that time
4 years ago wife asked for a divorce and had an EA. Through reading, hard work self change and prayer, the crisis was ended but with hind site I can say not healed.
This September Wife let me know that she needed us to separate. She did not love me and had been pretending to do so for to long. She had decided to buy a house and move out. She wanted to me to date her if I wanted and other people If I should choose to and that she was not looking for another man. She did not want me to try work on us but that I needed to work on me.
If we should divorce she wanted it to be fair for both of us and wanted us to be friends. I held her hand and told her that no matter what we would always be friends and that I would always love her.
This was the best talk that we had had in a long time and as strange as it may sound we became closer because of it.
To be continued....
[ December 17, 2001: Message edited by: Eric Making Plans ]
I did cry and my wife hugged me and told me she was tired of hurting me. Durring the course of our talk she said that she was still open to going to Hawaii.(We had been planning a vacation durring Thanksgiving but had not actualy booked the trip.)
I was hurting alot but did not show much to wife or presure her to change her mind. She went into active house hunting mode and the kids became very excited about moving. (The kids do not know that Dad will not be moving with them).
To Be Continued....
[ December 17, 2001: Message edited by: Eric Making Plans ]
[ December 17, 2001: Message edited by: Eric Making Plans ]
Listening to the kids be excited about the new house was very painfull and my mental state was deteriating. I knew our chances would be better if she did not move out. So one morning about 2 weeks after the Bomb drop. We Had a talk in the morning 5:00am (Normal wakeup time and no kids around for an hour). I talked to my wife and told her that things were happening faster than I could deal with and that the kids would need a me to be the best daddy possible and the way things going I was struggling and wanted time to process and be the best daddy that I could be. I asked her to quit house hunting and not move out until January. She was a little mad and said that she was not sure that she could do that. I told her that this must also be hard on her and I could understand her need to get the move over with. She finaly said fine she would move out new years day.
Things settled down and it became apparant that she had stopped house hunting and was settleing in for Christmass.
My mental panic / pain started to ease a little (constant battle!!!!) and I started to think about what I could do to make things better and I started reading / rereading relationship fix up books.
Reading Relationship books has been a mental life line for me. If I am not studying and thinking about ways to improve myself and the relationship my thoughts dwell on the negative.. separation, divorce, how will the kids take it etc. Basicaly if I am not doing something that is forward activity. I waste time dwelling on the future in fear, and thus hurting my mental state. It is a huge challange to live in the here and now and not worry about the future.
My main 180, although at the time I did not remember the term, was to change my work shedule to be home in the mornings.
For years I have got up between 4:00 and 5:00am and headed to work for a few hours and then get a workout in and change at the YMCA around 8:00am. Then I would get off at 4:00PM and Pick up the kids and get homework and dinner started.
I made changes at work so that I could check on and fix the company computers from home so that I would not have to go to work early. I told my wife that I was makeing this change so that she could start working out in the morning if she wanted to. Something we both used to do together before kids. When I told her this I was met with skepticism and told that she could not work and build a scedule and it if it were not a consistant thing that she could count on.
I stared being home in the morning and this was a big change in the morning routine for my wife and kids. I jumped in acting as if it were a weekend cooking a big breakfast and generaly changing the routine in a big way....Oups this change in routine made the wife mad and was a shok for the kids. Wife let me know with a good round of critisism... Wife complained that I was interfering in her time with the kids. So I backed off and became a pasive observer of the morning routine and started to blend my self in and be a helper rather than a bull in the china closet.
Wife and kids adjusted to me being there in the morning and the kids grew to love it and wife seemed to accept my presance.
I went ahead and siged my wife up with an executive membership at YMCA and with some kicking and snorting she started working out. Although she has not thanked me for the membership or the change in routine. She talks excitedly about the women she is meeting and the contacts she is making for her business.
The bigest and best result from this change is growth in my relationship with my kids!!!! Wow!!!
The improved realationship with my kids has helped me in lots of ways. I will share more about how improving my relationship with my kids has helped my DB efforts tommarow.
For now I must log off and head home and get dinner on the table and continue building good will and as possible good cheer.
To be continued tommarow......
May God be with all of you and bless you with restfull and hopefull productive night.
Spending time in the morning caring for the kids, breakfast, baths, and off to school. Wow what a great time. The Kids and I grew alot closer as the scedule allows a walk in the park or breakfast out as a treat. The whole house feels better and is working better.
Wife has been sleeping down stairs with daughter since late September. Never stating that she needed to be away from me. Just helping daughter get use to and comfortable sleeping down stairs.
My daughter asks me to put her to bed on occation and my wife puts son down And yea on those nights my wife sleeps in bed with me. I give her space but am glad for the time to be able to talk about the days events and oportunity to let her share more about how her day went.
Wife agrees to go out on first date dinner and a movie. We have a good time and even have a good night kiss. Kids stay at my parents house and my dad teaches my son cribbage.
Cribbage is a game that my wife and I use to play alot of before the kids were born. One night a small miracle happens. I had made plans for us as a family to play a family game. Game playing is a great way to have fun time as a family and the kids love it. This time though a small miracle happens the kids don't want to play. I have spent enough time doing things with them that they are happy just doing there own thing. I ask my wife if she wants to play cribbage and she agrees. Wow we are playing a game together and have a great time and the kids leave us alone. We have a good time playing and chit-chatting.
Cribbage becomes a several night a week way for my wife and I to relax and have some fun together.
House projects are another way for us to do things together. I go into hi gear getting house painted and house hold repairs done. These are things that I had not been getting done and were making wife upset. Working side by side on the projects felt good for me and generated better good will with my wife.
We go to Hawaii in november and have a great time wife is looking happier and even flirts with me a little. We go out dancing in Hawaii and have a great time. When we get back to the Hotel I turn a good night kiss into a more pashonet kiss and my wife responds. We Kiss like lover's do for the first time in months. We continue into a heavy petting session. We hug and go to sleep holding each other.
Hawaii trip ends and we fly back home. We get a hotel for the night before driveing home. Wife sets on the bes next to me and puts her hand on my shoulder as a gesture of affection. This is one of the first times in many many months that she has initiated a gesture of affection that is not a part of a standard ritual. Hug goodbye, Good night etc. Wow it feels good.
We get home all of us our tired and need to get used to the time change. But more than that my wife becomes more distant. The closeness I was feeling in Hawaii seems to be evaporating.
A few days after being home I initaite sharing a shower with my wife (Big Mistake) She says that probably not enough time to do that and I laugh and say always time for a hug. I get in the shower and she tells me she is uncomfortable and that I am crossing boundries. I back against the shower wall and say sorry. She leave the shower and I take mine.
I get out of the shower and start apologising. Wife lets me know that she is has not been saying anything so as not to spoil the Hawaii trip or Christmass but that she still plans on moving out and physical stuff that happened in Hawaii was done just help me sleep so that I would quit bothering her. She says she does not have romatic feeling about me. I say I thought we were getting closer and that our friendship was getting much stronger. She says friendship is better but that she does not love me and is still moving out.
My mental state starts to crumble. January is comming up quick and I feel lost and without direction. I fall back to reading / Rereading relationship books just to stay sane. I find a link to Divorce Buster's Website and read about Divorce Remedy. I buy book and read it at work and start forming plans and seeing things that I have been doing wrong. I am still in panic mode but starting to feel a little more in controll of myself.
I make some small plans and goals and make some small changes. Like no more saying I Love You. Since wife can not say it back. Letting wife come to me if she wants to give good night hug etc and generaly giving her more space.
Here I am now on the DB website creating a small journal.
Last week cribbage has been an almost nightly routine for my wife and I. If I don't ask about playing she does. Boy do I enjoy this time with my wife. Last Wednesday night was the kids school Christmass program and in the course of visiting with my wife before the program started she mentioned that her realter had dropped off more listing for her to look at. My heart stopped in pain "AGAIN" But I asked her if any looked good. She said they are al starting to look the same to her, conversation ended. This put me into another struggle with my emotions to maintain my PMA.
This last weekend has been good working with wife on putting up Christmass decorations and working side by side baking Christmass cookies. We went out with another couple last weekend to dinner and had a great time with lots of laughs and came home and played a game of cribbage.
It feels like we are getting closer like we were on our trip to Hawaii. I am limiting the amount of affection I am displaying and she seems to be demonstrating more on her own and in her own way.
Last week I had a telephone consultation with a DB Coach Vernetta. This went well and helped make me feel better.
This brings me current with what is happened. Writting this down has been good for me. I have started to do this on paper or on computer several times but have had a hard time doing it.
It seems to help do the Journaling if some someone else is out there and going to read it. Thanks for putting up with my thoughts.
I'm reading it Eric, as I'm sure many others will. Keep writing, it's good for you. I usually keep notes in my Franklin Planner, I at least keep track of what happens day to day even if it's w/o my W, as I haven't had more than a handful's worth of contact w/ her in 2 months. We don't have any kids so I always seem to notice when people have kids they seem to usually stay in the house or maintain much more contact, for obvious reasons. I only have a doggie that she took that I miss dearly, but the courts won't see it the same as kiddies. But keep the journal going! And keep up the DB techniques, they do work much more than looking needy and desperate, which we all can't always help preventing...
