Healing my Heart Part 6

[garyjlost]

Tal,

Hi. It looks like you have a large group of people who respond to your posts. Not sure you need anyone else chipping in, but here goes.

All I can really do is compare my situation with yours. There are similarities, but obviously you're hearing from me, not my wife. She (unlike you) isn't going to marriage forums for help. I'm the one who really brought the problems in the marriage out in the open. She would have just lived with the problems--and eventually divorced me.

So unlike your husband, whose idea of addressing his needs was to look outside the marriage for companionship, I recognized what was happening in my marriage and took action to remedy the problem. That's a crucial difference in our situations.

But not far below the surface, our situations have many common elements. I was absorbed in activities outside the family. I helped with conservation and wildlife projects. These volunteer efforts took a huge part of my time. I designed my vacation time so I could lead projects throughout the state. In the process, I took my family for granted. My wife focused on raising our daughter. She was totally absorbed by parenting. We both knew that our daughter would be our one and only child. So my W was completely focused on our daughter. It was next to impossible for me to get alone time with her, to go out to eat or to see a movie, without our daughter in tow. If we saw a movie, it was a kids' movie. If we went out to eat, it was a family restaurant.

As a result, intimacy gradually dried up. I pulled away from my wife into outside projects. I became more critical and negative in interactions with my wife. As a result, she pulled away further into the mother/daughter cocoon. And this continued for ... well, my daughter is 9 years old now.

I think this story is very, very common.

As I read the DB forums and as I read books about marriage, I keep encountering this same story over and over. The wife isn't happy with the marriage. The husband isn't happy with the marriage. But they don't know how to restore the situation and make the marriage work. And to a certain extent, one spouse (or maybe both) have really stopped caring whether the marriage works. They just live with the problems. And maybe they look for love outside the marriage. They remain in the marriage because of the children and because of the relatively comfortable lifestyle that the marriage provides. Maybe they go to a marriage counselor. But the problems are well ingrained and difficult to shake.

For me, the wake-up call started when I read John Gottman's WHY MARRIAGES SUCCEED OR FAIL. As he described problematic behavior that causes marriages to falter, I kept recognizing myself. I had to face the fact that I was responsible for a large part in the failure of the marriage. For several years, I assumed my wife was to blame. She was the one who stayed out all night drinking with friends. She was the one who had affairs. I had to accept my responsibility in the alienation of my wife.

How did our turnaround occur? It started with a separation. Once I confronted my wife with her infidelity, she insisted that I had to move out. Sort of ironic that I was forced to move out, not her. But our daughter's life had to remain stable. That meant she had to stay with her mom ... at home. I was the odd man out.

At first, I assumed we were headed for divorce. I was very dark and pessimistic, but then I started reading self-help books about marriage. Eventually the darkness faded away and I started to see some promise in the marriage -- if I made many major changes. I made the changes, my wife liked what she saw, and because she really wanted the marriage to work, she asked me to move back in.

So the question then is, how do you get your husband to wake up? Do you really still WANT him to wake up? Is there anything that YOU can do to urge him toward change? Or is this up to him alone?

Okay, okay, the other people in the forum are probably all shaking their heads going, "We've already been all over this territory." And they're right. I wish I could step in here and offer some great new choice morsel of wisdom that would solve your situation. But I can't. All I can do is show you a case where someone in a situation, with similarities to your own, was able to work on reconciliation. My situation is still very much a work-in-progress. My wife and I have a LONG way to go in the restoration of our marriage. But we're both working together (and struggling together).

I don't know your husband. I don't know what it would take to break through to him. Maybe a separation. Maybe seeing you moving forward with your life--without him in tow. Maybe seeing you dating other men. I'm not saying that's the right thing in your situation, but he will need a major shock to his system. What can provide that major shock? What can really make him rethink his behavior? Just hearing your pleads/complaints (whatever describes your approach) probably won't do it. You've tried that approach for several years, right? So more of the same won't work.

So what can provide a major shock to his system? I throw this question out to the forum. What has brought others back? Was there indeed a turning point? Was there an event or a revelation or an ephiphany that made a spouse understand their role in the failure of a marriage?

The marriage was good at one time, right? What things did you do together? Can those good times be restored? Sharing good times together is absolutely essential. Finding those good times again can be the key to restoring the marriage.

Of course, this all assumes you really want to restore the marriage ... Is that still the case?

Sorry if I'm just retreading what you've already heard many times before.