Conrats on making progress with the fitness thing! I am very happy that you are legitimately enjoying it for yourself. If this has been something your wife was always interested in, you now have a new interest to share together.

Thing with my wife, when I try to share her interests with her in attempts to become a more well rounded individual as well grow closer to her - her main concern is that I am only doing it for her. Which pretty much means once I am satisfied she is back, then maybe I will lose interest in that shared activity.

So its not too hard to understand that POV

Anyhow - no gurantees of course, but things sound promising

Fitness stuff aside, what other improvements are you making for yourself?

Typically in a WAS situation, it is many unplesant things that have compounded over the years that drove the person into the dirt believing the only sane and loving thing they could do for themselves is leave. They gave up hope. And I doubt someone getting a little soft in the middle would be the sole reason another lost hope.

For me: (no order of priority)

1.) Improve communication & listening skills. Obviously beneficial for life in general. Work relationships, friendships, relationship with my wife, etc. So this was something I needed and wanted to work on to enjoy my life as a whole better. This was the only area I read a book in and found it to be very helpful, almost common sense that for whatever reason I just wasnt getting.

2.) Figure out why I could have controlling behavior, be tempermental, judgemental, critical. Again, obviously beneficial for life in general. Sure, she may benefit from my addressing these issues, but so would I, so would my son, and so would pretty much every human being I come accross. We had a few joint counseling sessions, but most of this work has come from exhaustive & honest self examination.

3.) Learn to appreciate the interests she has that I in the past did not care for. It will only make me a more well rounded & diversified person as well as help bring us closer together. And who knows, maybe she too will become more open minded about exploring the things that interest me and we have that much more we can share together.


I take nothing for granted though. I can feel similar sentiment that its only a matter of time before things really improve between us. However if I allow myself to honestly believe that, I fear I may slip into complacency in improving myself and thats the last thing I want to do.


Me: 37
Wife: 40
Son: 7yo
Son: 18 mo
Bomb: 12/31/07
Status: Reconciled 1/2009 but backsliding terribly right now