I wasn’t going to talk about my sitch because I’m not really a “sharing” kind of guy, and my sitch could still deteriorate, though it seems to be going very well now.
I just turned 50 (happy B-day, ILYB!) and my W just turned 46. At the end of March she dropped the ILYB bomb on me. It was classic WAS and I was the classic invalidator/withdrawer. The Men are from Mars book might as well have been written about us, though I had no clue about this particular dynamic other than we were unknowingly living it. I was in shock. I worked hard for my family and did little to nothing for myself. I don’t even play golf. But I did neglect my wife, and later came to understand that I had been invalidating her feelings, though I thought I was trying to “fix” problems and encourage her not to be emotional about things.
I asked her to give us a chance – won’t go into detail about the emotional conversation – she said she would think about it, but no promises. I began losing weight on the devastation diet with which you are all familiar. I had certainly let myself go and could afford to lose the weight. Over the next couple of weeks, she seemed to not be making any efforts to start a divorce, but it turns out she had already been to an attorney and signed the docs before she dropped the bomb. I started encouraging her to go to marriage counseling (by email so as not to directly confront her.) She never responded directly to the emails, but we ended up having some emotional, but civil, conversations about it, which culminated in her telling me that I was torturing her by trying to talk about it. Four weeks after she dropped the bomb she filed the papers – no doubt because I was “torturing” her. In our last conversation about it she agreed that she would never surprise me with service of process. A few days later I received a letter from her attorney about service. It was as kind a letter and approach as you could expect, but I was even more shocked and devastated because I didn’t think she would do it and I expected a heads-up from her first.
After I received the letter I told her I received it. She was very upset. Said it was a mistake that I received the letter, that she had told the attorney not to send it until she said to because she wanted to be “sure.” She was so sorry that she hurt me. She said that there was no hurry, that we could take our time and postpone the date. I told her that it was public record and since she and I are well known in that court system and it is a very small community that our children could find out before we were ready to tell them if the case ever appeared on the court calendar. I also pointed out other reasons why we could not do this yet– won’t go into the reasons, but she understood them. She called her attorney and then called me back to tell me she had dismissed the case,
To recap, she told me she didn’t want to be married to me anymore, that she wasn’t attracted to me anymore, etc.. She refused to go to counseling or even consider discussing working on our marriage, did not wish to talk about it at all, and she filed for divorce. The sitch was dire and we were well on our way to a divorce.
When she filed, I resolved to make sure that my children were in the best situation possible and by acknowledging that this was going to happen and planning for it with her, I unknowingly “let go of the rope.” I then did extensive research because I was so confused and devastated. I needed to know what happened and how/if it could be fixed. I took a good look at our relationship and myself and recognized my failings – not that she did not fail us, too; she did. I began to address my failings and DB. I even began consulting with a DB coach, which I highly recommend.
Things have been greatly improved with my wife. She has acknowledged and validated my changes without actually talking about the R. (This confounds and perplexes my psych, who acknowledges that our R has nonetheless begun to recover.) W has taken NO steps to proceed with a divorce or implement the plan that we had jointly agreed upon. She is happier and warmer to me than we have been in a long time. We speak at length about her day and her feelings, etc. As we continue to improve, I realize how I had failed to take notice of what she really needed and wanted from me (Love Language) and she was not able to tell me; something we will both need to work on when we can finally talk about the “R.” Right now, we are “improving our relationship without talking about it.” We’re still not out of the woods, but we are clearly on the path to recovery.
I am sharing this, contrary to my natural instincts, to give some hope to those of you that need it. We make the changes in ourselves not to manipulate, but in the realization that our own issues have contributed to a breakdown of our marriage and that we value our R’s with out spouses enough to let our issues go. We don’t make the changes because we think it is easy or that the likelihood of success is great. We do it because we understand that it is the only chance we have to preserve something that is precious to us and we keep doing it until the fat lady sings, and maybe longer, because it’s that important to us.
So, it is my fervent hope that I have provided some encouragement to those of you that might need it. The changes I’ve made have been working in my sitch. I hope they will continue to work and I truly believe they will, but the likelihood of success has no bearing on my behavior. I don’t have much choice if I want to save my M and the changes were important for me to make, anyway, since it is obvious that “getting out of my head” has had a positive affect on my children. Our children were starting to develop the bad relationship habits that my W and I have, too. I don’t want them to ever have to experience this out of sheer ignorance as my W and I did.
This was an awesome post, MP. I hope you continue to have progress in dropping the rope and fulfilling your own life. And I pray that your wife does as well.
This was an awesome post, MP. I hope you continue to have progress in dropping the rope and fulfilling your own life. And I pray that your wife does as well.
Thanks for your prayer. You are one of the people I had in mind when I decided to post this. This is a very painful ordeal.
But I did neglect my wife, and later came to understand that I had been invalidating her feelings, though I thought I was trying to “fix” problems and encourage her not to be emotional about things.