Shocked H in NJ looking for DB help

[Willing NJ H]

Thanks NOMO,

I do understand what got us here, and strangely always have. She's always held back communication. In turn, it affected our emotions, trust, sex life, everything. I wasnted to fix things as they arose, because I don't want to be like my parents. I want to be married for life, and deal with problems not let them destroy us. We would attempt to talk about issues, but she wanted to sweep them under the rug. The problem would recur, and I would try to fix it, again and againg and again... etc. I was textbook "If it doesn't succeed, try try again." As we talked, I would give my ideas on how to fix the topic, and she would be silent or say "I don't know what to say, i'm not good at this." She would sit and listen, i'd talk for hours, and it got unbareable for both of us. I got depressed over time that she didn't trust me enough to talk to me, and couldn't understand why she was "afraid to speak her mind to me" when i'd never done anything to cause her fear in my mind. She said that I seem so confident and like I know what's right, that I had her thinking that maybe I was right and she was wrong. She wouldn't even tell me her thoughts, because she was afraid I would discount them and make her feel stupid. (I'm a lot like Gina's H). I've never yelled, never abused, always tried talking with soultions in mind to fix issues; and never realized that some things don't need to be talked about. I never made her feel like her opinions mattered or that she had equal control. She says that she sensed this from day one, and always felt she was making a mistake being with me because of it. We got far into the stages of being defensive and saying things without thinking, and said some very hurful things (not cruel, but that made the other feel horrible.) We were great friends, but she was always afraid of me being outspoken, and it snowballed from day 1.

From the beginning of our R, we had non-stop stress as well. New jobs, full time college for her. When she started an even harder universiaty, I started a corrections job/academy that put horrible stress on me and hurt her. We fought a lot due to the stress, and lack of time together. She graduated college, and I became a Police Officer. Another acadmey, stresses o both of us having new jobs. She is an excellant nurse (now a high level trauma nurse) but doesn't adapt weel to change. She came home crying and worried for months when she first started working in the hospital. We bought a new house in the middle of the new jobs, and it was a money pit. Looks great now, but we had a ton more stress over all of the work it needed and the time and money it consumed. While working on the house, we found out that she was pregnant with D,much earlier than we had planned. It was welcome, but the house wasn't done, and she stopped hepling with it. My shifts changed constantly, and she went to the trauma floor where she again tortured herself for the first few months. Now, finances are ok, time is getting better, and all stress has dissapated; but she feels like we should've never been together. I wanted more time together, feeling we were mssing closeness, and she felt i was "Up her A". She doesn't remember that she brought up marriage, she was so happy with me, she told me how comfortable I made her, how much she loved me, how I knew her so well.... nothing. She discounts all of the stress and hard times we endured together, and blames the effects of the stress on "we just don't belong together." She has commented recently, that she feels that "she compliments me perfectly, but I don't need her." she thinks that I am so confident and outspoken, that I don't need her to hepl me with decisions, emotions, or anyhting. I told her that she couldn't be farther from correct, and tried explaining that I got depressed because I always needed her and wnated the closeness that we should have.

Thats a lot of the past in a nutshell, she doesn't look at the facts... just makes up horrible reasons tat we don't belong together and uses the past to reinforce it.