I have come to the conclusion that my wife is in a full midlife crisis. Have been posting on Walk away wife as well under In Limbo. It has been 3 months of her showing all the typical signs of a midlife crisis. I have been in therapy since this started and have big strides in working on myself, doing GAL's, 180's, ect...She hasn't done anything except get a tattoo. Unfortunately, last thursday we had another blow up. Why--she gave me the bait and I took it and ran. I then asked the relationship question, where she promptly said yes I do want a divorce. I finally let out some things that needed to be said about her temper and why maybe I didn't hear her all these years. Her family and friends were afraid to come to her because of fear on how she would react. Her family and friends all think she is crazy for doing this. Anyway, right after she said she didn't regret anything she said, she tells me that she is switching therapists because the current one is leading her to seek divorce. Then she invites me to a fundraiser on our anniversary. I half heartedly accept. It has been 6 days since the blow up. I have been able to act happy for the most part(one of my 180's). However, she is going to the Cubs game this Friday. She could have got 5 tickets, but chose 4 instead. When I said I could have got off work, she said ok--I said that is ok, don't want to attend if wasn't invited. I feel this is a bit of retaliation. I have taken our sons to various funcitions the last 3 weekends. She has cut off all ties to my family and frineds, because she doesn't want to face them--I did make the mistake of talking to my family and my friends about what is going on with us.
Her big issue with me is that I was controlling all these years. "She can forgive but not forget." She needs to find herself, be independent, make her own decsions. She finally agreed to pay the bills so she can see what comes in and out of our house. I think that is helping her understand I wasn't as controlling of the finances as she thinks. This month's visa bill is $5,067.
Anyway, I told myself I can put up with a year of this mess. I am a little over month 3.
Why the invite on the anniversary?--I wasn't even planning on being home. Why tell me she is changing therapists due being led down divorce path? This is after the night before she says she wanted a divorce....
I dare not mention the Relationship word again. Learing fast that don't ask questions you already know the answer to.
Remarried 6 mo S 12 S 13 S 16 SD 12 SD 16 SD 17 SS 19
I have come to the conclusion that my wife is in a full midlife crisis. Have been posting on Walk away wife as well under In Limbo. It has been 3 months of her showing all the typical signs of a midlife crisis. I have been in therapy since this started and have big strides in working on myself, doing GAL's, 180's, ect...She hasn't done anything except get a tattoo. Unfortunately, last thursday we had another blow up. Why--she gave me the bait and I took it and ran. I then asked the relationship question, where she promptly said yes I do want a divorce. I finally let out some things that needed to be said about her temper and why maybe I didn't hear her all these years. Her family and friends were afraid to come to her because of fear on how she would react. Her family and friends all think she is crazy for doing this. Anyway, right after she said she didn't regret anything she said, she tells me that she is switching therapists because the current one is leading her to seek divorce. Then she invites me to a fundraiser on our anniversary. I half heartedly accept. It has been 6 days since the blow up. I have been able to act happy for the most part(one of my 180's). However, she is going to the Cubs game this Friday. She could have got 5 tickets, but chose 4 instead. When I said I could have got off work, she said ok--I said that is ok, don't want to attend if wasn't invited. I feel this is a bit of retaliation. I have taken our sons to various funcitions the last 3 weekends. She has cut off all ties to my family and frineds, because she doesn't want to face them--I did make the mistake of talking to my family and my friends about what is going on with us.
Her big issue with me is that I was controlling all these years. "She can forgive but not forget." She needs to find herself, be independent, make her own decsions. She finally agreed to pay the bills so she can see what comes in and out of our house. I think that is helping her understand I wasn't as controlling of the finances as she thinks. This month's visa bill is $5,067.
Anyway, I told myself I can put up with a year of this mess. I am a little over month 3.
Why the invite on the anniversary?--I wasn't even planning on being home. Why tell me she is changing therapists due being led down divorce path? This is after the night before she says she wanted a divorce....
I dare not mention the Relationship word again. Learing fast that don't ask questions you already know the answer to.
d1,
Dude, this sucks, but it is what it is for now....
I know you have been reading 73's thread.....
I'm not gonna type that out again.....Not that I don't want to help you, just no sense in going through it again....
If you didn't get anything out of it, you wouldn't be here...
Originally Posted By: d1adsl5a
When I said I could have got off work, she said ok--I said that is ok, don't want to attend if wasn't invited.
Easy on the guilt there partner....That can kill you QUICKLY
Originally Posted By: d1adsl5a
Anyway, I told myself I can put up with a year of this mess. I am a little over month 3.
A time frame ? Really ?
That is a recipe for failure from the start...
This will take as long as it takes.....Let me ask you this...
Are you willing to give a couple or three years of your life to reach a fifty year anniversary ?
Ask yourself that and think about that for a while....
New Tat ?
Oh yea....Script....Right Trapt ?
Buckle up man .....and READ READ READ....
It is anti-DB, and yes, you had a backslide with the Blow-up...Learn from your mistakes and move forward...
A mistake is only a major mistake if you keep making it...
Dust off and get back on that horse.
Stop asking questions you don't want to hear the answer to..
Don't talk to friends, neighbors, mailman, third cousin twice removed, and all of that crap....
Surround yourself with only people who understand and support YOUR decision, and come here to vent your frustrations...
Take away all the buttons she pushes to create anger in you...She is looking to justify her position right now....
DO NOT give that to her.....
Use your anger as a shield instead of a sword...Deflect her crap off of you instead of lashing out at her....
Well Mach beat me to the punch again. Now let me see if I can soften his blow a bit.
As a woman I can say this, women are screwy LOL. She did what she did with the tickets and then asked you to go because that was how she was feeling AT THAT MOMENT. That more than anything is the fun of MLC, one minute they want this, the next minute they want that. Remember shopping with your kids when they were toddlers? Same thing.
Yes remember no R talks if you can avoid it. Not right now anyway.
The time frame, yes it is nice to say I will do this for this long, and then I'm done. But you didn't say I will marry you until you lose your mind, the sky turns purple, or whatever. At least I didn't say that. You will do it until you can't do it anymore. That may be a year, it may be ten. Only you will know but setting a deadline really is just setting yourself up for failure.
Come here, vent, read, listen and learn. There are plenty of good people here.
Mach, I love the fifty year thing. You always manage to say something to make me think a little more. Thanks!
"Acceptance doesn't mean resignation. It means understanding that something is what it is and there's got to be a way through it."--Michael J. Fox
Thanks Cat. I am with you that only I will be able to say when I am done. I wanted to give you a snap shot of a letter I found that my W had written to a couple friends that have stopped being her friends. All three were like her sisters. I was quite close with them and their H's as well. After my wife dropped the bomb they obviously judged her. She said some things to them that they haven't gotten over quite yet. I have been doing the work the last 3 months to make my self better for me. Ok, lying a bit, for her too. Her main complaint is that I was controling. I didn't really hear I was controling from her until after the bomb was dropped. She has always had quite a temper. Such a temper that she is on the highest dose of effexor. Such a temper that her friends, family would come to me vs. her because they were afraid of her reaction. I told her that I was afraid too, so when she got mad, I just agreed so that she would cool off.
The letter reads:
"I am 1st going to explain my husband and I so you can understand what I am going through. I am not going to bad mouth him, he is a good person, father and friend. These are my feelings of what I am going through and not his. Control, if very hard to explain and I know you both experienced this in your life at one point or another. Growing up I had a very controlling Father. I was never able to do things like I wanted. I was never good enough for my Father. I wasn't smart enough, pretty enough, thin enough, or good enough for anyone. He repeatedly told me this my entire life, still to this day. So I tried to rebel, that didn't work it made my father and I more distant. As I grew older I didn't want to rebel anymore, I turned into the person my Dad wanted me to be. I met Dan and my Father was finally happy with my decision I felt close to my Dad again. I know I loved my husband or I wouldn't have married him, so I think I was. Since we were dating it has always been about him. There is so much I cannot even begin to write it all down. We have tried to work on it for the past 10 years, and I have tried to work on it silently for the past 17 years. I am such a pleaser that I just forgot my feelings and just hoped it would pass. I met so many people that were happy in their marriages that I wanted that so much for me and us but I knew deep down inside I wasn't happy. When I would hear stories of divorce or people that were struggling in their relationships I just wanted to help them so much and talk them into staying together because I wanted that for me. I thought if I kept helping others it would help me in a way and talk me out of what I was feeling.
So now I am almost 40 and I want so much to grow up. I went from a controlling father to a controlling husband never being on my own. This is what I am struggling with. I feel stupid, I have no self confidence in my self. I am a 40 year old idiot in the 21 century that cannot do anything for herself because I was never allowed or able too. I may seem like I have all the confidence in the world on the outside but deep down inside I am still a 12 year old looking for her father's acceptance.
I no longer can live that way. It is killing me. I am saying good bye to the old person I have to for my boys and for my future. I don't know where that is going to leave me within this community, my husband and me and you guys, but I don't want to die I want to live for myself and my boys. I want to be a strong women for my boys and a good mother. And thats what I was doing inside, dying a slow death."
I am not sure how to take this. Is it really over? Is this a midlife crisis? I know she needs therapy. As I said in an earlier post, she is switching therapists because the other one was leading her to divorce. However,that is probably what she kept telling the other therapists.
It is just hard when she says we have been working on it for 10 years. I had no idea. I had no idea that she didn't love me for the last 10 years and she was acting...It is hard that she thinks this is best for our three sons. My sons just want a mommy to love them. They don't care if she works or not. Anyway, my W just got a part time job today. Hopefully that starts her on the path towards fulfillment. I have suggested getting a job before and she just said not ready. Now it is the only thing she thinks will help save her. When she says it was always about me first, I would have to say that I did put the kids before her and sometimes my job. I guess we lost each other over the last 10 years since our sons were born. Today we were talking. She was going through all the friends that she has left. It almost sounded like a highschool girl counting her friends. I said I am still your friend and your kids are here too. Of course, she did take offense to the kid comment. I was just trying help her to see that it is not just about what friends will still talk to her. I know--I should have just listened...
Anyway, just confused by the letter I just found and if I should just stay the course....
Thanks
Remarried 6 mo S 12 S 13 S 16 SD 12 SD 16 SD 17 SS 19
Quite an on target remark about the 50 years. The talking part is one that I really need to work on. Somebody asks how I am doing, and it just comes out...That will have to stop. I am going on day 7 without anger or a relationship talk. I responded to Cat with a letter I found. I knew there was baggage when we got married 15 years ago, but I had no idea it ran this deep. When I say this came out of left field, I mean it did. I knew when she started facebook back in January, there was something not right. She posted about 40 pictures and I wasn't in one of them. Then the reconnection with the old college friends...then the going out all the time dressed to kill which she still does once or twice a week. She won't do anything with my family or friends because she knows they have already "judged her"
I appreciate the directness. I will keep thinking of the 50 years and that this is a large speed bump in the middle....
Thanks
Remarried 6 mo S 12 S 13 S 16 SD 12 SD 16 SD 17 SS 19
Glad to see you responded to Mach, simply because he is so smart even if he is a little hard sometimes.
Your letter, wow does it scream issues. And it screams she has no idea which direction she is going. So as for advice, personally, I wouldn't give up just yet. It will be a really bumpy road, and you and she both may decide that it isn't going to work, but now is not the time to walk out. She knows what her issues are. At least at a surface level. She just has no clue how to change this stuff, because what she has tried to do, to win her father's approval, has not worked so now she is questioning if it was the right thing to do. You wife needs to realize that whether she gets his approval or not is not the measure of her worth. She gets that she has to make herself happy. That is really a good thing. Now she has to be strong enough to try things, until she finds her own happiness WITHIN herself (see that is the real key, happiness comes from within, not outside of us). I won't lie to you. This will be painful for all of you. It will be hard. She will do things you won't like, won't approve of, and you will often want to walk away, if you choose to continue to try to stand. Once she comes to realize that she holds the keys to her own happiness, she can then really decide about the marriage, what type of mother she wants to be, etc...
In the meantime, detatch. Work on yourself. Protect your kids as much as possible. Decide what you want. Listen, validate, and work on you. Start with the controlling, you may not have felt controlling, but your W thought you were. Best thing to do, let her find her way, without offering an opinion if possible, show no approval or disapproval of her actions. Read, learn, I can't believe I'm going to suggest this to you, but you might want to read The Love Dare. It is about unconditional love. I wouldn't suggest actually doing the dares yet, but reading each one and pondering the questions will teach you a lot. I have another one that is also about unconditional love but the title escapes me at the moment so I will post it in the morning. That is what your wife, and all of us really, but your wife is screaming out for. IMO.
Others might not quite agree with me but... I would love Snodderly's opinion so hopefully she will drop by.
"Acceptance doesn't mean resignation. It means understanding that something is what it is and there's got to be a way through it."--Michael J. Fox
So now I am almost 40 and I want so much to grow up. I went from a controlling father to a controlling husband never being on my own. This is what I am struggling with. I feel stupid, I have no self confidence in my self. I am a 40 year old idiot in the 21 century that cannot do anything for herself because I was never allowed or able too. I may seem like I have all the confidence in the world on the outside but deep down inside I am still a 12 year old looking for her father's acceptance.
I'm not sure about anyone else, but this screams MLC to me...
To me, this is a very good look into the mind of MLC. The struggles, the pain.....It can't be pretty for them...
This ONE paragraph explains her pain to the best of her ability D1...
The rest of the letter is simply projection, and trying to get someone to justify her stance at the moment....
The projection is her trying to blame her issues onto you...It is YOUR fault that she is miserable, cause it can't be hers...
You took her by the hair and dragged her to the church, didn't you....
Couldn't have been HER choice...
Other than this one paragraph, what I read here is Blah,Blah,Blah.....BullChit.....
Read D1....Understand this path...
BUT.....You have to validate that pain for her...
YOU have to feel some of it too, in order for you to understand what she is really dealing with....
Best thing for you is to take care of you.
Take care of your kiddies...
And get the hell out of her way.....
Don't ask for anything you don't really want...
As my good friend Jimbo says.." Once you ring that bell, it can't be un-rung"
One thing that I have learned in this....
The line " I can't lie to you anymore " ACTUALLY means.....
I'm going to do nothing BUT lie to you anymore.....
Please take care of you and your kiddies...Watch your finances....
How you take thoughts and remove the words so they make sense. Wish I had that ability, instead I ramble...
Stopped by this morning with the book titles I promised. They are a little odd but light reading, past life regressions. Written by a psychiatrist. But even if you don't believe in that stuff, the messages from these people sessions is unblievable and it came from somewhere, even if it was simply their imaginations.
One is Many Lives, Many Masters and the other is Only Love Is Real. Dr. Brian Weiss.
"Acceptance doesn't mean resignation. It means understanding that something is what it is and there's got to be a way through it."--Michael J. Fox
Listen D, here's what is most important right now.
First and foremost, take care of yourself - eat, sleep, exercise. Make sure your kids are taken care of.
Now, roll up your sleeves and get to work. This is a time of real growth for you if you open yourself up to it.
Think about the things in your marriage that werent good. Figure out your part in that. Think about the things about yourself that you feel need changing.
Then, start on the journey. Look way inside. It's not going to be easy. This is hard stuff. Really hard. But, it could reap huge rewards.
Your wife has a lot of stuff she is trying to figure out. Let her.
You have to decide what you want. If you want to see if you can have this marriage, you have to do the work. There are no guarantees, but, I can promise you will come out of this a better, stronger person.
