Is she a WAW (and so far that's the only abbreviation I've been able to figure out)? I'm not sure. Perhaps not. Perhaps Pushed-Away Wife is a better description. For years, but especially in the past year, she's asked me to go to couples therapy. I was afraid of what would happen. I was afraid of things being said out loud.
From 2003 to 2004 I was in the Army in Iraq, and it took me a couple years after to come out of a kind of haze I was in. During that time, our work lives and personal lives had begun to move in parallel ways -- and parallel lines never cross, as you know. Add to that all the baggage from before the war. Apparently I wasn't the greatest husband in the world.
She took a trip with her girlfriends in January and I sent her an unpleasant e-mail complaining about the fact that she wasn't calling or e-mailing me. Frankly I felt a bit abandoned. Apparently, that was the straw that broke the camel's back.
The awful irony of it is that, because I exploded one day with my kids, I started individual therapy in December and went on some medication that has really had an amazing effect not in terms of changing my moods or anything, but in allowing me to think clearly -- perhaps for the first time in life. My son has a rather profound case of ADHD -- something I long argued was a "phony" syndrome invented by drug companies, by the way -- but watching him grow made me reminded of...me, when I was his age.
SO I went to a couple different therapists, took a bunch of tests, and lo and behold -- Adult ADD. I resisted the diagnosis - I answered the questions in the way I thought LEAST likely to produce it, because I didn't want to think of myself as flawed or use something like it as a crutch or excuse.
Long story short (too late, I know), I started to do some serious reflection and reading. I began to understand quite clearly what I had been doing wrong. I had a business trip just after she got back from her vacation, and on that trip I decided to ask her if I could join her in couples therapy.
Unfortunately, the day I got back she told me in no uncertain terms: 1) I love you but I'm not in love with you; 2) that door is closed; 3) I've moved on; 4) I want to work with a therapist so that we can co-parent.
I suggested that, given my own (late) discovery of therapy, it might be fair to give it a shot. She relented, but I suspect it is the therapy equivalent of "mercy sex."
I know she's having some kind of fling with a Facebook friend, if only electronically. She doesn't deny it, but minimizes its importance. My position is that anything of that sort necessarily impacts the way she deals with the here-and-now.
Apparently that's none of my business. She told me plainly this morning -- I don't think it's going to work, but I'm open to being proved wrong.
Okay, what does that mean?
I'm trying hard - very hard -- not to pursue. I'm listening when she talks. I'm accepting the things she says as reflecting her feelings, not arguing with them, not trying to negate them.
I try to do the same, but I'm deadly afraid that ANYTHING I say will come as a kind of conspiracy -- that I'm gaming the system, trying to say what I think she wants to hear, etc. And I'm not.
But I don't know what to do from here. We have a first appointment with a couples therapist tomorrow, and I'm awfully, terribly afraid.
I'm sorry about your situation, but I'm glad you found your way to this board. You will find a lot of support here.
Don't be afraid of counseling. Talking about the darkest things will help you and your wife get to the root of your problems. It is never too late to save your marriage, especially when the walk-away spouse says that she is "open to being proved wrong." She WANTS it to work.
The Facebook fling is giving her a "greener grass" feeling and is probably helping her try to envision life beyond your marriage. Your job is to make yourself a man that she can't help but choose over anyone else in the world. Not easy, but it can be done.
Please read Sex-Starved Marriage and No More Mr. Nice Guy ASAP. Keep an open mind, and prepare yourself for a long journey. No matter what happens with your marriage, you have a lot of work to do for yourself to make your life a better one.
Sorry to see you here. You may want to read the DR or DB book.
Can you tell a little more about your situation, e.g. do you still live in the same house, sleep in the same bed? How old are your kids? Has she made any steps towards D?
The things you want to start are GAL, try to get a more PMA and think about 180s. All of that is described in the DR book. Please feel free to ask any specific questions. Also, focus on yourself more than on your W. You cannot control her, and the more you try the worse you feel. With everything you do, ask yourself whether you do it for yourself or for her. If it is not for yourself, do not do it.
BTW, my S8 was diagnosed with moderate ADHD as well, but to tell you the truth, I am more or less convinced that it has more to do with the family situation than anything else. Also, I recently heard about a study that showed a close correlation between the number of ADHD cases and the number of hours of Phys. Ed. at the school. So it is not hopeless. Good luck!
AN
M43 W45, M17 S9 D6 Bomb: 11/11/08 EA: 10/26-12/31/08 ? Retrouvaille: 2/13-2/15/09 Healed, but still heading for D My situation
Lucky: Thanks for those words. I went back through some old journals -- always start them, never carry them through -- and found myself reflecting on the fear I felt in counseling. At root I was always afraid to find out she didn't really love me. Oookay -- that fear seems pointless now.
Another Nightmare: I need some kind of glossary for all those abbreviations! On the ADHD I was ALWAYS a skeptic. "Oh, it's just Big Pharma! Oh, it's just an excuse!" But watching the lad I've witnessed it. And as I think back on my father, I suspect he probably was attention-deficit as well -- his old college report cards certainly suggest it.
As to the GAL and the this and the that. Where can I get up to speed on that lingo? Totally mystified. Or, as I like to put it, ??????
I will bet that she does love you. It's just eroded for a long time, and it's up to you to become the light that beckons her back. Your fear of her not loving you is part of YOU that you will soon dig up, examine, reframe, and resolve AS LONG AS YOU STICK TO YOUR JOURNEY. Don't disappear from this board, don't give up, don't stop reading, don't get lazy, don't hide from yourself. Or, you'll turn into just another schmo with a mediocre existence filled with confusion.
This is exciting. The pain and turmoil. This is your chance to come alive. Let it rip you to shreds, let it burn you and shatter your world. Let it dissolve the old parts of you that hurt and that make no sense. THEN, after a ton of work, you'll be able to truly LOVE... your wife or whomever.
I've only just begun my journey, but I'm so glad I'm not dead and in hiding anymore.
This might make some sense to you now, but I hope it makes even more sense to you in just a few weeks of diligent work.
Welcome to your new beautiful life! Face it head on.
(I'm not a freak, I promise. I'm just so happy to have found my focus, my energy, and some real hope.)
For the last 2 weeks, really, but especially in the past few days, we've been talking a lot. I guess I latched onto the 180 concept pretty quickly, because I'm impressed with myself -- I'm rational, I'm reasoned, I don't attack, don't criticize, don't devalue her feelings.
Yes, I cry from time to time when things she says hurts, but I tell her it's okay that the truth hurts me she should still be truthful.
So today's "truth" was an oldie-but-a-goodie -- "if you truly loved me, you'd let me go."
That's a curious saying, because it's so treacherous and sinister -- how do you argue with the logic of it?
Tomorrow is our first marriage counseling session and I'm about as scared as it comes. She called from work tonight and said, quite clearly, she was happy with her decision to divorce; she is now angry that I've messed the decision up; when I say we have to see what the "work" looks like, her reply is "I don't feel like working much".
So I'm essentially staring up at Mount Everest, and my fear is that she'll resist because she's locked into the decision. She thinks of it as the first decision she's made in the marriage because when we moved it was for my work. Plus she's got this Hollywood Divorce image where we're really good parents (together) and really good ex's (together) and we take the kids out (together) and so on.
On the GAL, I'm as a GAL as I can be, all things being equal. There are 2 kids to raise (both grammar school), and I work. I have a lunch coming up this week with a friend, another the next week, a trip scheduled in July.
What I wrestle with is that HER GAL seems to be a lot more dangerous -- EA via the internet (though now her story is "I'm not interested in EA, I'm interested in sex," but she doesn't seem to equate contact with OG on the chat room as an "emotional" affair, even though it clearly provides emotional feedback).
What I'm really trying to do now is LIVE the 180 and not just model it.
Well I've spent most of the night reading threads. On the one hand they've given me a lot of insights, esp on 2 counts: 1) My story is a common one and 2) HER story is a common one.
Last night she asked what I find to be an impossibly obvious question: "If you truly loved me, wouldn't you want me to be happy and let me go?" That is a treacherous question!
We've been having lots of R talks -- probably a mistake. She called and said she'd gone from happiness with her decision to drop the bomb to a place of anger (again, which she didn't want). So Man Up! Let me go! And it would be good for the kids because then we could focus on them!
The awful thing is that I see the logic there perfectly. If you love someone don't you want to do whatever it takes to make them happy?
So now I'm all conflicted on the DBing. And it didn't help that I read the WAW forum and, yep, that's her.
But then I think -- surprise, because I'm trying to DB, right? -- why would someone want their happiness to come at someone else's expense? And the only obvious answer I can come up with is, "because you don't love that person any more."
So if she was sincere with ILYBNILWY, then she COULD be happy even at my expense. Because I would surely not be happy -- and I wouldn't be happy with my decision to love-her-and-let-her-go.
Because I would know it was the WRONG decision for me, at least at this time.
So what do I do? Do I fall on my sword and be a martyr to demonstrate that I "truly" love her by letting her go, or do I risk failing at DBing by continuing to anger her and make her firmer in her mind by insisting that we work together at least for a while to see if a new marriage/partnership can rise from the ashes of the old one?
Ugh.
Now I'll try to do the signature/sit thing -- see if I get it right:
Me: 46 WAW: 45 Married: 18 yrs Emotional Separation (hers): 1 yr S9 D6 ILYBNILWY/Bomb: 2-13-09 Same house, different rooms
You can actually set the signature somewhere under the "my stuff" tab so you don't have to put it in every time and just change it when you feel so, or need to.
Your W reminds me a little of my H's cousin. When she left her H, she suddenly lost 100 pounds, went to C only to help him work through it and went on her marry way. And this man was supposed to be her best friend. But she didn't have the anger that your W seems to have and her H really didn't try to do anything differently. So...That being said, keep DBing becuase in the end what YOU get out of it is for you. Keep up with your C because it sounds like that has been good for you. As for W, if she was as set in her choice to D as she wants you to believe, I don't think she would be mad right now. She would be moving forward with D no matter what. Yes regardless you have to let her go. Let her go in the sense that you recognize that you cannot control her and you know that she will make her own choices.
Good luck.
If you focus on the past, you ruin the future. You can only live for today.
