well the wife stopped by today..

[houndfan]

Marc,

I think that I am caught up on your sitch. Please accept my thoughts in context to your sitch and understand that I will not personally attack you but your methods. Ok?

Me thinks that you need to really decide why you are trying to save your marriage. I have decided through my seperation and problems in my marriage, being on this board, and seeing marriages break apart in front of my own eyes that there are usually only 2 reasons why we fight for our marriages:
1) Love/committment/trust
2) Ego

I can not get a good feel on your posts which you are and I don't want to type cast you, but I am friendly with a lot of police officers as I train and raise K9's and I can tell you that my experience is that PO's typically fall into the second catagory in that it becomes about ego for them. What I mean is that they don't want the marriage to end because THEY don't want it to end, not because they are deeply in love or committed with their partner.

With you I can quite figure where you are, but I can tell you that you have some egoistic comments in your posts that scare me into thinking that you are further away from saving your marriage than you might think!

So what do you do????

Me thinks that you need to forget everything you think that you know about marriage and relationships! You need to understand too that she is scared, frusterated, confused, in love, and timid. She is absolutely in control of your situation and there is nothing you can do about it...UNLESS....

You change your thoughts about your marriage right now! In reading all I can about DB'ing and spending countless hours on this board I have come to realize that there is a pattern to every save, this is not to say that following this advice will put you back together again but I think that your chances will be better.

First thing you need to do is drive your ego out of the equation. You need to remember that you are part of a couple, a team, a partnership. She needs a partner in much the same way that you need one on the street from time to time. She needs you to support her no matter what!!!!!! So that is lesson one in Hound's book Affirm everything!

If she is nervous around you then accept it, tell her that she is right and listen to why. Then change to make sure that you can have that time with her. If she tells you that you are a heartless jerk, tell he you agree and listen to why and how you can change. It matters not why you think that she is wrong, if you want to save your marriage you need to affirm. My wife and I were talking about that over the weekend as we came to a conclusion that she realized that she was being crazy during the seperation but my affirmation of her crazyness lightened things up and allowed her to put down her guard. She now realizes that some of that stuff she said was crazy, but she believed it at the time.

"i miss her and to have her so close" - do you have to have her close because you need her to support some missing link in your ego or because you love her so much? Either way the answer is the same - you are a cop, you defend th public good from all the bad guys in the world right? Yet on the flip you seem to be needy and controlling (disclaimer - I could be so wrong about this as I am just going off of your psosts). If I am right about that thought, what do you think she thinks when she is creating a picture of you in her head?

Does she see a hero whom defends the public, would jump in front a bullet for her, all while savinig a kitten from a tree? Or does she see a man who is loud, scary, and controlling? Right now the truth does not matter - only the perception. When you are on patrol and you see a guy with a mask and a bag with a $ on it after hearing that a bank was just robbed what do you think? Her perception is the image that she has of you and her marriage not YOUR marriage. Forget for a moment that 5LL's because I am not sure that is what you need right now.

You need to listen to what her perception of HER marriage is and see how it relates to your marriage and then figure out how to build a marriage that works for both of you. AFFIRMATION!!!!

I know how you feel, early in my posts I see myself talking about how painful certain things were for ME. I never considered the reverse. Once I began to affirm I started to see our marriage differently. I began to listen to her even when she was guarded in her comments.

Fish was the freaking king of failure at that lesson... go back and look at his posts and you will see that she was talking and he would not listen for anything. He let his ego work his ears because he thought he knew what she wanted. Same for you, it seems like you think you know what she wants. It hurts when she comes and gets stuff from the pantry... WHY?

It hurts to have her come get stuff from the pantry because it is against YOUR perception. What's the big deal? Giver her the beans, vanilla, and oil and buy some more. She was there for a reason and it had nothing to do with the pantry. I am sure if you replay that event there were some verbal clues that she was giving that you missed because you are listening with your EGO and not your heart!

Part of this affirmation process is acceptance of your situation! You are closer to divorce than R. You are closer to a major change in your life than you realize. You need ot accept the reality of where you are today! You are seperated and almost divorced. It may be because she is being unreasonable, it could be because you are being unreasonable, or it could be because a million other reasons. To save it, if you want to you need to decide why! If you choose to save it because of your love for one another and your committment to your wife I applaud you. If you decide to save it because it is comfortable to your ego you may get back together with your wife, but I would bet that it wont be for long.

If you want me to post me send me a message!

Good Luck Marc!