struggling to make R work

[garyjlost]

Hi. After a separation, I'm back at home with my wife. Things have been going well for a couple months. But last night my wife said she wanted to go out drinking with her friends this Friday. And I sort of froze up. You see, she has had numerous affairs in the past few years of our marriage (16 total years). And this is how it always started, with her going out drinking. I was hoping I wouldn't have to deal with this for a few more months. But there it is.

I told her I felt uncomfortable about her going out drinking. We have plenty of examples to show this is problematic behavior on her part. And then she said she feels smothered by the marriage. In the past, I gave her lots of room to do whatever she wanted. But now I have expended a huge amount of time and energy to make the marriage work, and the marriage is now my complete focus. All my energies have gone into making it work. I made huge changes. I'm very involved in all family activities (we have one daughter, 9 years old). My wife and I have date nights every week or two. I go to parties with my wife (I wouldn't do this before) and we go out dancing together (I rarely did this before).

At the same time, though, I have felt that my wife wasn't completely satisfied. On more than one occasion, she has said something like this: "We went from you being rarely around -- for 16 years -- to you being around all the time. It seems a bit much."

I can give her space. But I've done that in the past, and problems resulted. She doesn't make good decisions when she's drinking.

The bottom line, I suppose, is she feels suffocated by the marriage. This didn't come to the surface until last night. For the past several weeks, she seemed happy, although she had some reservations that she wasn't willing to talk about. She thought we were talking too much about the marriage. She just wanted to "live" the marriage. So I respected her request and we haven't talked a lot about the marriage over the past month or so. But that means we haven't been dealing with potential problems.

So I need help from others who have had to deal with a partner who broke their trust. Somehow I need to develop trust again, but this is really hard, especially when confronted with statements from my wife that she 1) feels suffocated in the marriage and 2) wants to go out drinking (without me present).

How have others dealt with situations like this? I'm sure my situation isn't unique. I'm starting to freak out. Help.

You can read more about my situation by using the link below.

[Concerned_Listener]

Gary,
I understand your fear. The M is going thru a transition, so things are unsettling.

You've renewed your commitment to the M, and this is new for the W. She doesn't know what to do with your presence.

A difficult thing to accept in the Piecing process, is that we ultimately don't have control over the decisions our spouses make. We can work hard at improving ourselves and the M, yet our spouse still may choose D or infidelity.

We have to work on our own happiness while we work on ourselves and the M. This means that ultimately our opinion on ourselves and our efforts matter more than what our spouses think or do.

I'm assuming your W's nights out are not negotiable. In fact, expressing concern about it shows fear, which is not a good thing for your W to see. It gives her too much power.

You seem to be doing good work, and have kept your M together. The affair has stopped, and now the M must heal. This will take time, and will be difficult. It will require patience, persistence, humor, listening, flexibility, communication, and goodwill.

CL

[garyjlost]

Thanks, CL.

There does seem to be some negotiating room regarding my wife going out drinking. But it doesn't make her happy at all. She has backed away from her plans to go out drinking with friends. But now she's frustrated. She thinks I'm making too much of her past infidelities and doesn't want me using this against her (which might make he laugh if this wasn't much a serious situation).

You're right. I need to be working on my own happiness. I haven't been doing that very effectively. I have pretty much defined my happiness in terms of the marriage succeeding. And I suppose that's a mistake.

You said:
"We can work hard at improving ourselves and the M, yet our spouse still may choose D or infidelity."
Yes, I suppose I had sort of forgotten about that. I wanted to believe that the R was working, that the M was in recovery. Thanks for the reminder. But this is sort of like a blast of cold air. Yes, she may choose infidelity. Her past history seems to indicate that she likes a lifestyle of late nights out drinking with friends (followed by affairs). But all I can do is work on the marriage so that it's completely satisfying for her and thus (in her mind) infidelity loses its allure. Of course, I have to also be working to make the marriage completely satisfying for me.

This is all so complicated.

[garyjlost]

This might seem like rambling. I hope not. But I'm struggling with some issues regarding my wife. She was a WAW. We're now attempting a R, which is going fairly well ... I think. But she is still sort of distant. She hasn't really committed to the R fully. She's still in wait-and-see mode. She wants to be convinced that my changes are for real. That the changes are permanent. That I won't backslide. So far I'm doing a pretty good job. In fact, my wife seems to think my changes are a little TOO much. Now, I'm always around. I'm involved with the family. She and I are going on dates regularly. We go to parties. Things are seemingly good, but there are undercurrents that she's not really satisfied. For example, in order for me to get any of her time, Monday through Friday, when she's typically focused on our daughter, it takes a major effort on my part. Something as simple as watching TV together requires negotiation. First, does she have time to watch TV? (She thinks all of our 9-year-old daughter's in-house activities need to be monitored, from watching TV to practicing piano.) Second, will we watch from the living room, where we have separate chairs, or from the family room, where we can sit together on the sofa. Asking for the sofa can require some nifty negotiations.

Okay, we are indeed talking about a woman who was a WAW. She was very close to being gone. She was really thinking that divorce was appropriate. But then I made some major changes and she decided that we should give the marriage another try. MAYBE, I should just be glad that I'm living at home again. MAYBE, I should just be glad that my wife can see my changes. MAYBE, I should just be glad that we're sleeping together, that we do indeed share some time together on date nights every week or two. MAYBE I should just consider myself fortunate that she occasionally says "I love you" (although she always it in response to me saying it first, except when she uses it when ending a telephone call, although, hell, she probably says "I love you" after ordering pizza delivery--she does love pizza). MAYBE, I should just consider myself fortunate that my WAW is still here at all and working with me. I read about other husbands with WAWs, and it just breaks my heart how there is seemingly NOTHING they can do to win back their wives. The wives are gone and it's only a matter of time, maybe over a year that they endure the pain of separation, before they can really see the writing on the wall and move on. I'm in a much better situation, no doubt about it. I recognized what was happening with my wife and took action before we had passed the point of no return. But still ... we went a long way down the road toward separation and divorce. We led separate lives for a large part of the last decade. And there is ingrained behavior and ingrained attitudes that are difficult to change. I'm trying the best I can to be a loving husband. And I think I'm succeeding. I think I'm doing a good job. But my wife isn't used to seeing me in this role and it confuses her. She says my changes are a bit much. She recognizes that she argued that I needed to be more involved in the family, but now that I am involved, she thinks maybe I'm involved TOO much. She wanted more love from me, but now that she gets it, she thinks maybe she's getting TOO much love. She thinks there must be a better compromise between no involvement and constant involvement, no love and constant love. So I back off a little ... but finding the right balance is tough. I'm not sure the right balance really even exists. It's always too much or too little. This is so hard. And it requires so much of my energy. I can keep going like this for well into the foreseeable future. But it's not exactly satisfying.

My anxiety swelled up again today because of something seemingly insignificant. (I've been on anxiety-relief medication but it doesn't really seem to have much of an effect.) I sent my wife flowers. I've been doing this every couple weeks since the R started. I sent a nice card, in which I said I love her. I got an e-mail message from her in return saying, "Got the pretty flowers. Thanks. Hope you're having a nice day." That's it (oh, and a smiley face). Okay, maybe it isn't fair for me to want her to say anything about "love." Maybe I shouldn't WANT to hear those words. But if she had said them, just a simple "I love you, too", then I would feel so much better right now. She obviously withheld the "I love you." For her, it didn't seem appropriate. It wasn't something she could say. MAYBE I shouldn't read too much into that. MAYBE she's just being honest. She'll say "I love you" when she really means it. Until then I have to be content with the fact that she's here, that I'm sleeping with her, that we're acting like a family, that we're working together on the marriage.

Maybe this is just what it's like working with a WAW. Maybe she'll eventually come back to me emotionally. Maybe she'll eventually really want me the way that I want her. Maybe eventually she'll really give me her lips when we make love ...

I don't know if she's really happy with the R. I suspect the results, for her, are sort of a mixed bag. Some good mixed in with the bad. But getting her to talk about this is next to impossible. It's always the wrong time. She sighs--it's too late, it's too close to supper time, it's too early in the day, it's too etc. But when is appropriate? She dances. She tiptoes. She slips away. And I don't ... know ... what's ... going ... on. I'm left with her silence.

I feel like I'm twisting in the wind in an abandoned town.

[Dr LOve]

Gary,

At least she responded.. Be thankfull. My W NEVER resonds to ANYTHING.. E-mail,Flowers,gifts. And we live in the same house..

Dr Love

[MrBond]

I agree with DL. My wife came home but still considers us "separated". We haven't ML in almost a year and the last time she gave me a hug was 6 months ago.

I would say, just continue having patience. One of the problems I think we all run into is that there comes a point where we just get impatient or tired of being the one who is constantly giving and the other person not reciprocating in the way we WANT them to.

I had hit that point a couple of nights ago where all the hate and anger from the past 10 months came screaming out. I had to go for a drive at that point and let it all out without my W hearing. I did feel better after that and kept praying for more patience and tried to give my burdens to God. It is tough, but we're in it for the long haul. It's what makes us different from the WAS.

[garyjlost]

Thanks, Dr Love and Stuck808.

It helps hearing that what I'm going through isn't uncommon. Maybe this is even how Rs work with WAWs.

The whole concept of piecing together a marriage means you don't get everything back at once, right? You get the marriage back piece by piece, and each piece requires its own restoration work.

Yes, I need to consider myself lucky. I have things so much better than most others in this situation. I have to keep that in mind.