No, I specifically noted that dropping the rope is probably not the best answer for you right now. But it may be someday.
It goes back to something I posted a while back about friendship being a step on the road to romance. All the support builds goodwill and friendship. But you never quite know if it will help you get to the next step: romance.
In my case, my wife wanted to live her independent fantasy life. My support was enabling her fantasy, in essence enabling her further towards D. Now other WAS may be different. They may be open to romance and the support moves you closer. You just don't know.
So keep doing what your doing and monitor. If you start to see that your stagnating, the baby steps stop, then consider a different course. But not now.
My thread, Carpe Diem #4 Orig Thread: Carpe Diem #1
My wife has a home-based business and she complained about the same thing: my lack of support. Like you, it wasn't true. I've done alot of thinking about this and talked to IC about it.
It's about lack of accountabilty and low self-esteem on their part. The 'fact' is that their business isn't performing. They see that as a personal failure. So they start rationalizing, playing the 'if only' game:
If only the economy was better. If only I didn't have competition. Blah Blah.
But they can't control any of the real reasons. So they fall back to anger transference. Pretty soon its: If only my husband supported me.
That one is great for them. It makes it seem as if everything they are doing is perfect. It discounts or ignores all the real problems that they can't deal with. And it puts the blame on something which they have some degree of control over.
I talked to C about 'blame' our last IC session. My wife blames me for alot of things beyond her business. When she has trouble with kids, she blames me too.
C talked about how blame is an immature\childish coping mechanism. The child learns that they can avoid accountability by blaming something else. As they mature into adulthood, the hope is that they will learn accountability and recognize blame as a crutch. But that is very difficult to learn and some people learn it better than others. He also noted that people who do learn it sometimes regress when under stress and start blaming more.
The good news is that seperations encourage people to become more self-sufficient and accountable by their nature. So your wifes concern with lack of support may slowly start to resolve itself.
You need to decide what to do about the financial stuff. But making changes to your arrangement is more support and in some ways relieves her from being accountable and self sufficient. It's a bit counter productive. It might generate goodwill, but may slow her progress in becoming accountable for her business.
My thread, Carpe Diem #4 Orig Thread: Carpe Diem #1
Actually, a while ago, I posted that when I was telling her all the things that I had done for her business, she asked me: "Why are you telling me all of this? I know that!". I then told her that my lack of support for her business was THE major complaint about me that she had. The she asked me: "When did I say that?" And I told her she told me when I got the ILYBNILWY talk. So apprently, she changed her mind about that already a little while ago. In general, she has not been blaming me for anything the last couple of months, especially after she moved out.
Re her business accountability, I don't see it improving anytime soon. The people living around here just aren't that interested in spending money on art, especially in the current economic situation, which is a SHAME, because she has BEAUTIFUL stuff!!! I told her my concern about this 1.5 yrs ago before she started her business and that did not go over too well, maybe that's when it all started? I have always told her that I think her art is beautiful, I just had concerns about the marketability in our area. I think that right now, she's probably more dissappointed in it not being successfull than blaming me. If I could figure out a way to help her make it successfull, I think that would help our sitch a lot. Just don't know how I would do that...
While I was typing this post, she messaged me online and she seems very upbeat, asking me to review her newsletter she's putting together and what I think about it. Yesterday, she was very distant and cold, so it's getting better again.
Something I hadn't shared earlier: On Sat, I was working in the yard and managed to lose my wedding ring, which I never take off and which I have been wearing all through the current sitch. My W had come by the house between the time I last know I had it and when I realized it was gone, so I told her what had happened and asked if she had noticed if I was wearing my ring when she came by. She said she had not noticed whether I was wearing it or not. (I had noticed she was wearing her engagement ring and another ring I got her for Xmas a couple of years ago tho!). I looked for it most of Sunday and then again Monday, didn't find it. I kept thinking: what kind of f@#%ing sign is this! I had called a few friends to see if they had a metal detector and one of them gave it to my W to give to me on Mon morning (she was not coming by the house until Tue night tho). A coworker brought one into work on Tuesday, so when I got home I went out with it and found it after about 20 minutes!!!! My W comes by the house to drop off StepS and the metal detector and I tell her I won't need it after all because I found it. She seems glad and asks where I found it and I tell her. And now I think: what kind of a really GOOD sign is this!
Also, when she pulled up, she immediately walks up to me, kisses me and then hugs me. She takes the time to show me her newsletter again with progress, talk about the lost ring, even though she is already 20 min late for a meeting she is supposed to be in. She had told me during the day that she wouldn't have time to eat at the house because of the meeting, but she was late and so I had already cooked dinner and made a little package to go and handed it to her in the driveway after she hugged me. She thanked me for that.
I was just reading over in Techguy's thread a post about getting respect from your WAS and that that could help bring feelings back. I am starting to think that maybe the fact that I told her the money sitch wasn't working as it should has shown her that I am not just gonna keep covering her expenses?
Yesterday, my W contacts me again and asks for my advice on the newsletter in its' finished form. I compliment her on an awesome job, she really IS very good at that kind of stuff!
Thinking more about the newsletter stuff, and other things, I am really convinced her major love language is Words of Affirmation. And I try to give those to her any chance I get!
I was reading an article about people that have lost a large amount of weight and how they sort of lose their personality temporarily. It said it can take a while to find it again. I thinking this is something that could also have an effect on my sitch. Anyone have any experience or knowledge on that?
Sam I am not sure about losing personality. I have lost more than 40 pounds since my sitch started. I feel like I gain some confident because of the weight loss. I guess this is a good change.
How about you? What do you feel?
NW626
Me:33 STBXW:38 S:3 It's not whether you win or lose, it's how you fight the fight....!!
I also feel more confident, but not like I am lost as to what I am and what I like. But my W has lost about 70lbs and at the same time got into her WAW state of mind:
-Her taste in music changed (slowly coming back somewhat I think over the last month or so)
-She used to play video games (now she says that she can't believe she used to do that, what a waste of time...???)
-We used to watch a couple of tv shows together (now she says she deosn't have time to watch tv, but she's slowly getting into some of them again, she watched one of tem online when she was sick a couple of weeks ago)
Just a few things I have noticed over the last several months... She is/was definitely different in her tastes for a while, maybe her old tastes are slowly coming back?
I was just wondering if maybe she thought she was different and is slowly rediscovering herself?
