Recovering from setbacks

[stardust]

My wife and I have been growing apart for the past 5 years of our 10 year relationship (married for 6.5).

We started out on the wrong foot. At the very beginning, I was unsure about her, but she pressured into committing claiming we were perfect for each other and that I just needed to see the light. I stated some of my some of my concerns (she was needy, there was not a strong physical attraction, too much pressure to commit before we had really spent time together as a couple). She jumped through hoops to meet my requirements and then came to resent me for that. We both felt cheated from the beginning.

We managed to get past that initial struggle and we made a home and life together. I felt that I had never met someone who loved me as much as she did, and as we spent more time together, I started to slowly fall in love. We were engaged and at that point I think we both started to take the relationship for granted in some ways. She questioned if I truly loved her and I questioned whether I was really fit for normal life - family, career, and marriage. As our initial impressions of one another were slowly replaced by a more nuanced and somewhat less positive view of who we each married, the initial excitement started to fade.

Then the biggest mistake. We moved to away from our friends and family for my job. Add in our wedding, her third year of law school and bar exam, birth of our daughter, new jobs, and not liking the area we moved to, the stress piled on, and we started to grow apart. These significant life experiences changed each of us in different ways, widening the gap between us. She transitioned to the isolation and exhaustion of being a stay at home mom, and I transitioned to the soullessness of middle management in a cut throat corporate environment.


Neither of us were reallly there for each other during this difficult period and some of the old resentment began to reappear and fester. We looked at each other as the source of our own unhappiness and the disappointment and resentment grew deeper.

Our son was born and things did not get better. I did not realize it, but this when I started to lose her. She had become cold and indifferent and I had become more and more angry and disillusioned with my life's path. She focused all of her energy on the kids and I numbed myself and my growing misery. I criticized her for not responding to me the way I wanted her to and it felt to her like a replay of our early relationship where I made her feel she was not good enough for me. She withdrew further and it felt like she did not care about me, my life or appreciate what I did for her. I became the object of her discontent, and she mine. The cycle went on and on.

Then we prepared to move back to to the same area where we had met for new jobs and new start on life. Some damage was done, but some hope returned for the new life we would have. When I started my job, after the first month or so went by, my old misery came back with a vengeance. This is when W's emotional detachment was complete. She had an experience with a psychic that made her question the path she was on, she continued to struggle with unresolved feelings for men from her past, she started a new job, took another bar exam, had to leave the kids with the nanny, and things got more and more exhausting for both of us. We argued and fought without any positive outcome. We dug in deeper and finally we both reached our limit. I exploded, and my W shut me out and started to live a private life on the Internet.

She started to search for some relief outside our marriage, and I felt totally abandoned and worthless. I then started to become suspicious and watched her every move. I felt angry and betrayed. She felt invaded and smothered. I talked endlessly. She shut down. I became a desperate mess thinking my life was falling apart before my eyes. I fought off the depression, and she struggled to survive in our now loveless marriage.

I started to do the work....to take an honest look at myself and how I have handled the relationship and treated her. I started to learn how to love her without condition....many of the past annoyances became endearing to me, I fell in love with her all over again and more, but also became possessive, weak, and desperate.

She was finally done. My love was expressed in extreme terms, and she did not trust it. There had been our early relationship when I was unsure, my criticism of her for not being there during the difficult time we spent away from our friends and family. I become very frustrated and angry and say things I did not mean when she stonewalled me. These episodes convinced her that I do not, and probably never really loved her. At this point though, I was unable to continue to accept her growing coldness and emotional betrayal for seeking attention from her former lovers.

To my W, this gridlock was so painful and exhausting that she concluded we were not compatible...that we just aren't right for each other and the love was gone.

To me, this gridlock was so painful and exhausting that I tried to fix it everyday by convincing her that she needed to fall back in love with me as I had with her. She shut down further and I kept on talking....further confirming for her that this was not right, this was not love, and causing me to relive some psycho-drama of emotional abandonment that I experienced as a child, and felt totally rejected by her at a basic level.

Then my biggest blow up was her final straw. It was over. In my devastation, I opened my eyes to the destructive power of my rage its impact on our relationship. I realized that I had been playing the victim and had failed to truly take responsibility for my own happiness. I knew then that I needed to change.

And my W, so exhausted and confused by what happened to her life, also became the victim. Focusing solely on me for the source of our marital problems, she decided it had all been a sham, it was all my fault, and she completely closed herself off from further hurt, frustration, and pain and denying ad pushing away the love I had to give.

And so here we are...we are both emotionally maimed, exhausted, angry, and losing the last vestige of hope that we can salvage this love which started off on such shaky ground to begin with. I cannot let go of her and let her be, and she cannot let go of her anger and resentment, forgive me and open up to the love I have to give.

I think the one thing we share is a desire to not give up before we try everything. She wants space and I want affirmation of her love. Opposing desires make this seem impossible but yet we are still here.....full of fear, bitterness, and hopelessness.

My desire is to acknowledge, accept, and apply what we have learned from this painful history to start anew and rebuild our love and marriage from the ground up, since there really is nothing left from our marriage past nor is there anything either of us can do to change what happened. I think she wants this too, but neither of us really know how to go about it.

We have just started counseling and I have been trying to follow the DB advice, but when I backslide, I beat myself up endlessly and she immediately withdraws for days on end, making it harder for me to maintain my strength and loving detachment. Sometimes I lay it on too thick, and she recoils, sometimes I detach too much and she retaliates.

She has given us 4 months to work on it, and then she will make a decision to move forward or file. I feel that I have a gun to my head and someone is telling me that if I show any fear, they are going to pull the trigger. How can I maintain my composure under this extreme duress. I love her so much and I am fighting for my family, but sometimes I feel like giving up as I cannot bear her coldness, indifference, and the emotional pain and uncertainty of this situation.

When I backslide I feel like I lose all progress made to date and I am running out of time.

Please help!

[TrentC]

I think the one thing we share is a desire to not give up before we try everything. She wants space and I want affirmation of her love. Opposing desires make this seem impossible but yet we are still here.....full of fear, bitterness, and hopelessness.

Are you sure that this is a desire she shares with you? If so, then I would talk to her about joint marriage counseling.

My desire is to acknowledge, accept, and apply what we have learned from this painful history to start anew and rebuild our love and marriage from the ground up, since there really is nothing left from our marriage past nor is there anything either of us can do to change what happened. I think she wants this too, but neither of us really know how to go about it.

You start over with yourself. You have four months to become the man that you want to be. Not for her, not for any other woman, but for yourself. If you change, then by definition the relationship changes.

Work on detaching from her, so her emotions don't fuel your own. Work on the obvious 180's (it sounds like you're on the right track here).

Give her space by getting a life for yourself. You will give her breathing room, you will find things to be positive about that do not revolve around her, and you might find something that you can share with her down the road.

She has given us 4 months to work on it, and then she will make a decision to move forward or file. I feel that I have a gun to my head and someone is telling me that if I show any fear, they are going to pull the trigger. How can I maintain my composure under this extreme duress. I love her so much and I am fighting for my family, but sometimes I feel like giving up as I cannot bear her coldness, indifference, and the emotional pain and uncertainty of this situation.

All relationship talk should cease immediately from you. You. Do. Not. Discuss. The. Relationship.

You have been trying to tell her how you feel for how long. Weeks? Months? Years? There is nothing that you can tell her that she will believe, especially if you keep demonstrating the opposite. So if pursuing her with words isn't working, it's time to try something else.

Every time you push, she recoils and affirms her desire to be done with this relationship. To paraphrase another poster, "If you don't push for an answer, you may eventually get the answer you want. If you push for an answer, you'll likely get the one you don't." And that's where you're at now -- she's giving you four months to work your sitch out.

If she tries to initiate relationship talk, keep it short and sweet. If she expresses frustration or anger about the R, validate her feelings; when you validate, she can't fight with you because you're agreeing with her. If you can't validate, tell her you'll think about what she is saying and end the discussion.

When you are around her, come up with a positive mental attitude. Exercise is good for positive thinking because you release endorphins into your system. Worst-case scenario, you may have to fake being happy around her until you can generate that positive mental state for yourself.

Take any positive signs as just that -- positive signs. Do not try to attach any meaning to them, or try to guess her motivation.

When I backslide I feel like I lose all progress made to date and I am running out of time.

It sounds like you know what you have to do; you just need strength to do it. Re-read The Divorce Remedy.

[stardust]

Thanks TrentC,
All good advice. BTW, we are currently in counseling. For her, MC is very uncomfortable and she is usually her most negative and ambivalent when we are there. For me it is the only time I have to talk (MC forbade R talk outside of counseling sessions).

Outside of counseling, she does not seem to be making any effort other than to be polite to me. She says evidence of her effort is that she is still here. Sometimes I wonder though if she is just biding her time until she can plan her escape, and so she can say she tried.

I have made a lot of progress....I have been running daily, I lost 30 lbs in 2 months, and the stretches of time that I maintain that loving detachment has been longer and longer. I am focusing on taking care of my kids, being happy, and working on myself.

You are right about having the strength...I need to be OK no matter what I get or don't get from her. But sometimes her coldness seeps into my soul and I react. I am also in crisis mode where my brain is saying everyday "do something, do something", but that flight or fight response is what gets me into trouble. I end up getting upset and saying I am done, I can't take this anymore, I am tired of loving someone who does not love me back, etc., etc.

The last incident has taught me that my emotional responses overpower my intellectual responses, and that I need to walk away when I feel flooded.