hey- sorry you are still milling about these boards. you and i have so much in common with our situations. have you tried just letting your W go on and on about whatever is making her so unhappy without interruption? one thing that has helped me is just to listen and empathize with my H when he is talking about things i did that hurt him. remember perception is reality. your wife truly believes you have done these things to her, and no amount of convincing, explanation and finger pointing is going to help. part of healing is being heard. once your M is more stable, then you get your turn. or you just decide to let it go. in the long run, seriously, who gives a sh#t who did what to whom.
Actually, perception is the inability to deal with reality. The reality is this woman did as many if not more bad things than this man, and she's unable to deal with the reality.
Now, I agree 100% that arguing about the past is worthless. Don't defend your actions. say, "I was wrong to think/do/say that, I can and will do better now, I will continue to improve and it will be better than ever."
Disengage the argument and start looking to the future for solutions (come on, that's Michelle's whole thing! Solutions-based counseling!) Give that a shot and see what happens. Focus on fixing yourself, you can't fix yur wife. If you improve and she doesn't, work on yourself some more until it's obvious one thing or the other is going to happen. When it does you're better off regardless. My $.02
We can talk ourselves into defeat or we can talk ourselves into victory - we are creatures of our thinking.
3/31/07 - Hit with a brick, leaving the dent there...
