I read through the sitch line again. OK, there were some bad things that you did, but you did them in context with the bad things she did. I think she blames you for her depression, which is most probably symptomatic of her life and she would have been depressed no matter who she was with or what she was doing. You are not responsible for her depression. There are problems within the marriage that could be dealt with in therapy and communication problems that could be solved in Retrouvaille. I know the answer, she won't do them.
But you need to stop feeling so guilty. She is who she is, and she is responsible for herself.
I know Sara... I just keep thinking that if I was loving and supportive and knew back then what I know now maybe it would've been different. At least it wouldn't be where I am now.... What frustrates me is that I did them while being ignorant and just didn't know how to treat her properly. I never had any examples or role models in regards to a good relationship. I was completely clueless. I had no clue what I was doing was hurting her. It just absolutely didn't occur to me. I didn't maliciously do them on purpose with a plan to hurt her. Of course right now with her pain goggles on she could careless where I was coming from.... I'm just so hoping and praying that she can put aside her pain and forgive.
So right now her belief is that she needs to rebuild her self confidence in order to deal with anything else. If she can be as strong as she can be then she has a chance to deal with the resentment. Otherwise we have no chance. She's just not wanting to see that Retrouvaille can give us so much hope and make things a lot easier to deal with. I'm hoping that when she feels she is strong enough to face our problems then she would consider Retrouvaille as a starting point.... I think right now she is so afraid to be hurt again... I am just not sure what I can do to make her feel like I'm a different person and I will not do those bad things again. Any suggestions?
M: 31 W: 31 M: 7 T: 8 S:4 D:2 Bomb dropped: too many to count or remember, 12/17/07 last one S on 9/2/07 W sent off D papers 12/31/07. Me trying to live life and hope she returns one day.
What can I say? You have gone way beyond what I would have recommended to do to change her perception. You give in to her every desire. You are there for her, and understanding of the non-understandable. You are the guy for her. I hope she will see it. I can honestly say I do not understand your wife. She does not fit into the same mold as most of the other wives I hear about on this board. I believe your wife does have emotional problems and needs professional help. I hope she is getting it. I can understand why your parents don't understand, but her mother does. Her mother knows her daughter is the one with the problems. She's tried dealing with it probably for years. Maybe she has some advice for you.
I want to be sure that you understand that the entire point of Retrouvaille is to learn positive communication between spouses. It's goal is to foster understanding. Confronting your marital issues is not really what happens there. Perhaps if you could convey that to her it would help. You need to better understand her. She needs to communicate what is going on with her emotions better. That's what you learn to do there.
Thanks Sara. The only advice I got from MIL is that give her time. She says the W is her father's daughter. That side of family is very stubborn and proud, and can be pretty bitter at times. At times I do feel that as much as she loves me, she may not be able to let go 6 years of her resentment... Perhaps time will heal... According to her her IC has given her information about Retrouvaille and she has read up about it. So I'm not exactly sure what her understanding of it is.
It may seem like I'm bending over backwards to accommodate her. But the thing is I know my W well enough to know that she is an extremely genuine and generous person. She is always thinking of everyone else except her. She would never take advantage of anyone, including me for self gain. So if she ask for something, it would be something she really thinks she truly needs. Heck, until now it has been a huge problem in our M. She would do things I want to do even though she doesn't want to and then that became resentment. I begged her to stop doing that. She has finally learned to truly speak what's on her mind.
I suppose only thing I can do is keep giving her space and time and hope that the small steps we are making in getting closer to each other continues. Hopefully that'll help later on when she thinks about us.
M: 31 W: 31 M: 7 T: 8 S:4 D:2 Bomb dropped: too many to count or remember, 12/17/07 last one S on 9/2/07 W sent off D papers 12/31/07. Me trying to live life and hope she returns one day.
I'm reading the book called "The DNA of Relationships" and it claims this program has something of a 90%+ success rate in saving marriages....
M: 31 W: 31 M: 7 T: 8 S:4 D:2 Bomb dropped: too many to count or remember, 12/17/07 last one S on 9/2/07 W sent off D papers 12/31/07. Me trying to live life and hope she returns one day.
