Phil, I've been following your postings for quite a while and thought I'd post to you this morning. BND has given you wise advice. Be still, sit quietly and the answers will come to you. Everything will change when God wants it to change.
MLC is a very different type of animal when it comes to trying to reconcile...it doesn't matter what faith you practice or the various methods you try to get your spouse to see reasoning. It's just not going to happen until everything has been played out and in some cases, it doesn't happen at all. Your wife is off on her own spiritual journey, a journey that has been lying dormant for many years. It is a journey that takes her back to a time in her life whereby her emotional well being was stunted. She has to go back to that time, face the demons and then grow/move on from there. You are not part of that time, you don't understand the emotional pain that they suffered and have stuffed down for all of those years. When people are suffering this type of emotional pain, they don't think rationally and you can't rationalize w/them. The more you try, the more they pull away from us. They don't want to hear what we have to say or what we've done to ourselves. Actions always speak louder than words w/them.
What you need to focus on right now is yourself, family, activities and your job. Work on doing things that make Phil happy. If you feel that you need to make some improvements in yourself, do them. However, keep in mind that any improvements are to be made for you and must become a permanent part of your life. Your wife will be observing from afar and will know if you are only doing them to get her back. BTW, during this type of emotional/spiritual journey, her radar will be on high and will sense things more so than she would normally.
My advice to you today is to listen to the posters. We've been down the yellow brick road often enough to know what you may need to do. If something doesn't work, try something different. Leave her alone, allow her to come to you when she needs to. She needs to feel safe and do not point out her flaws and/or failures to her. Validate her feelings, compliment her when she looks nice and/or does something for you. She needs all of this in order to feel good about herself once again. It is a very long and painful journey for both of you, but you both will get through it if you will read the postings and follow the advice.
Phil, what make a list of those things that need to be done and check them off as you get them done. Add a list of fun things too. So, what's on your list today?
