It's kind of hard answering these questions from 26 months ago (my math was 12 months off ^up there^). I tried my best to go back to that time in my sitch to give you the most honest answers I could.
5. Have a better understanding of each others needs and expectations.
Quote: What are your needs and expectations?
My needs are to feel loved by my W and for my W to share her feelings with me so I can better understand her. I need for my W to accept my love for her and have compassion and understanding of my feelings.
My expectations are for my wife and I to work on our marriage together in the future. I expect open lines of communication between us and to stop playing the "mind reading" game. I expect us both to be true to ourselves by being who we are, NOT who we think the other wants us to be. I expect a 50-50 marriage with equal amounts of giving and taking. I expect us to learn and grow together as we find out more and more about each others needs and expectations.
Quote: What do you think hers might be?
I feel my W is expecting me to provide her happiness for her. She said she married me so she could be happy again. I feel this may be what she meant when she said it was a mistake to have married me. She discovered that I could not provide her with her own happiness.
My W also expected me to be a father to her children. After her divorce from H#1, their children were nothing more than a distant memory to him. He left town, no calls, no B-Day cards, no X-Mas gifts, no child support, no anything. Her kids were young then, D9 and S7 so a father figure was important for them. Needless to say, being a step-father is not an easy task. As the kids grew older, I was becoming more of a nuisance to them than anything else. This was not what my W wanted for her children. Once again her expectations of me fell short.
Quote: What times in your life together do you think that you have both have been meeting each other's needs? What were you both doing at these times?
My love languages are Quality Time and Physical Touch. My W and I would often go down to the beach and watch the sunset. We would embrace each other and together we'd just stare in the same direction. We would talk about our future and could see ourselves in our dream cabin in the mountains.
We would also take walks at night, holding hands and talking about our day. On other nights we'd run, laugh, and play sidewalk games. We were just 2 kids, 2 best friends, having fun together.
Those were the times im our marriage where I felt the most love from my wife. I was getting both Quality Time and Physical Touch at the same time. I say was because during the last year leading up to our separation, we no longer went down to beach nor took those walks. My wife was always too tired or she had a headache. I feel that was one of the "signals" I failed (or ignored?) to notice that something was wrong in our marriage.
As for me meeting my W's needs...apparently I rarely, if ever, succeeded in that area. I thought my love for her was enough. How was I supposed to provide her with her own happiness? Her happiness had to come from within herself. How could I be a father figure for her children when she belittled me or became enraged at my attempt to do so. I couldn't be the type of father figure she needed. How could I, she never let me know what she needed from me as a father to her children.
Quote: What were YOU doing that you think might have made her feel like you understood her needs, and made her more open to understanding your needs?
I don't think either of us ever truly knew what each others needs were. Our communication skills sucked!! You go into a marriage and expect it to run on auto-pilot forever. Pretty sad when you think about it.
- Mark
What goes around, comes around.
My sitch: "Third time's a charm?"
