Trying to make it work

[soul_mate]

I have not posted for months, but still stop in and read every no and then. For those of you that remember me I would like to thank you all for the help that was so much needed this year. Without the help of everyone here who knows where I would be today.

As for my situation I will give a short run down of it. Separated from wife for 3 weeks in Dec 06 Jan 07. Before this we were having serious problems for months. Wife said she was not in love with me and wanted it to be over. Our first break through was in March when she suprisingly agreed to go on our trip to Mexico that was planned months ago. After the trip she told me she wanted to work on our marriage and and told me she loved me. She has been up and down with her love towards me since the trip. So far this year I coutinue to be a model husband and continue to do the things I did not in the past. During this time I have also wondered about her texting OM, which is less of a concern now, but still bothers me a little.

Here is where we are today.
She has told me that the main thing that made her come back to me was our children, although she is glad that she did come back. I still wonder if she is really glad or is it only for the children. When we have a R talk she still tells me that it takes time and she is not over everything yet.

I still feel that she is selfish in many way. I do alot of work around the house and do things to make her happy, but don't always feel appreciated. Funny thing is this was always her complain about me that I did not appreciate her. I guess I want the seemingly impossible for us to both feel appreciated and loved.

She is not very loving towards me and sex is infrequent. Although there are time where she is loving and sex is often. For the past month there has not been much of anything and it is driving me crazy. I do my best to control myself and overall do a good job I think. I have mentioned this to her, but it just seems to make her mad so I try to hold out and hope things improve. I worry about getting back into the rut that we were in before all this.

Money continues to be a problem and she does not want to deal with it so I feel left with the burden.

I still have a difficult time completely trusing her even though I don't think she is having any kind of affair. She is attractive and I know guys are always coming on to her.

Anyway I just wanted to make a post I know my situation could be a lot worse, but I am still struggling and wanting to make a great marriage.

[Concerned_Listener]

SM,
I'm glad to hear of the reconciliation of your R. I can understand your concerns about going back to old patterns. I worry about you holding onto resentment, which will hamper piecing efforts.

Can you identilfy any positives in the R? Is there anything that you or your W are doing differently? What were your W's concerns about the M?

I can understand your concerns about division of labor, and money stressors. Don't let these problems take-up too much of your energy. Do what you can to solve the problems, and then accept the rest. Work on building the positives in the M, otherwise your M will be vulnerable for another crisis.

Be careful of the opinions you form of your W. Empathy, listening, and goodwill will get you a lot further than judgment. As far as her imperfections (you describe selfishness), set limits when you need to, otherwise accept her for who she is, and help her to grow with your support and being a role model by working on your own happiness.

CL

[Sara]

Hi Soul_mate,

Congratulations on getting your marriage back on track as much as you have. You have done a lot. It sounds like you and your wife have been going through the disillusionmnet stage of marriage, maybe even into the misery stage. This is very hard to break out of. My husband and I were caught in feelings of unappreciativeness and became very resentful of each other. We thought our only choices were to live in an unsatisfying marriage forever or get divorced. Then a friend recommended Retrouvaille. In January we attended a Retrouvaille weekend, and it changed our lives. Our marriage is restored to the way it was before children. No miracle here, we did it ourselves. They just taught us the tools.

I recommend it highly. See http://www.retrouvaille.org for more info.

[soul_mate]

Thanks for the responses retrouvalli sounds good just don't know how she would see it at this point.

Well right now I am on a big roller coaster and am starting to feel lost. Over the past couple months the W does not want to spend much time with me at all. She go's to bed early and watches taped TV shows at night and works during the day. I know she works hard and most of the time is too tired to hang out with me after work and putting the kids to bed. I have talked with her a couple times, but she just gets defensive. I suggested planning a drink night etc. Her response is I don't want to plan anything why don't we just do it. That is fine, but we never do it. I have been keeping a journal over the past 4 months and I am not just blowing things out of poportion.

Now I feel I cannot talk to her and I know I will eventually start distancing myself from her. Now I am extra frustrated over what has happened the past 2 weekends.

She went out the past 2 weekends, which is fine because she has not went out much at all over the past couple months. She stayed out extremely late 5AM, which ruins the next day since she is either tired or sleeping so I have the kids to myself. I trust her and am 99% sure she is not cheating or anything so that is not a problem. My problem is that she can find the time to party for 12 hours, but she can't find 5 minutes to spend with me. This has me furious and I feel that I can't even talk about it. Then to top all this off she tells me she wants to move so she will not have to work and spend her time with our kids. I am onboard with this but just a week before she was wanting to buy a luxry car since "She works hard and deserves it" she just seems to be all over the place. Thanks for letting me rant any advice would be appreciated.

[brandnewday]

UMMM.....isn't piecing about communicating and not repeating the same mistakes?

Why are you so afraid to tell her how you feel?

Why are you too afraid to establish boundaries?

To me it seems as though you are walking on eggshells and your wife is continuing the exact same behavior as before.

This does not sound like much of a reconcilliation but rather like someone who has settled because he was too afraid to expect change and for her to make compromises.

You can continue to live this way, and let her rule the roost, and do whatever she wants, or you can learn how to communicate the fact that you are unhappy and want to work together on this Marriage.

[soul_mate]

You are right I am letting her rule the roost and the communication thing is still not working. I have communicated what I want with her on several occasions and nothing is done about it. I don't know if I am communicating the right way or not, but I have told her what I don't like about our marriage. Here are some of her responses she is doing the best she can, still hurt over my past neglect, I am tired from work all day, just want to relax, don't want to talk about things let just do it, not feeling well, etc. She is obviously still hurt over the past which makes it very difficult to work on our marriage. Her feeling is like this is all I have to offer take it or leave it.

Everytime we do spend time together we both have fun and enjoy each other, which helps our marriage. The problem is we don't do nearly enough of it.

[brandnewday]

So...whatcha gonna do?

Who is the initiator in the relationship?
I would guess that she is the most dominant one from what you have described.

Honey it is time to rock the boat a bit...BUT don't tip the boat over.

[soul_mate]

Not sure what I am going to do. I need to talk with her more, but I want to wait until the right time.

She is the dominant one right now but I am letting her be more so now since I think I have caused a lot of the problems in the R. She says I am really the dominant one, but I make her feel like the dominant one to appease her. One of her complaints about our R was that I always made the important decesions and she felt her option did not matter. I though she was involved with the decesions, but obviously she didn't feel that way.

The bottom line is sooner or later she must try to make the R work and stop holding on to the problems of the past. The problem is this is her decesion and there is not much I can do other than wait or leave.

I am always talking about the problems on these posts, but our R is not all bad.

[Nugget]

SM, I remember your sit from Dec. Good to see you guys got back together, but I looks like you have a lot of work ahead still. It does not appear as if you wife is fully on board yet with re-newing your R. Are you afraid to be more assertive or dominant, out of fear she may leave again?

[soul_mate]

I don't think it so much that I am afraid of her leaving, but I don't want to push things in the wrong direction. I feel as though being assertive or dominant at this point will only have a negative impact unless I do it at the right time. I know at some point I will have to be assertive if I am to ever get the R I want. She admits to having a difficult time balancing work, kids, herself, and marriage. Her current thought on everything is that if we just escaped the "Big city rat race" and moved somewhere were her income was not a required that things would be good and she would be able to balance. Maybe she is right on this because things were much better when she did not work.