Now is not the time for you to be suggesting that HER PROBLEM is a female issue. Or any other issue for that matter. In fact you even presuming to address ANY of HER issues is a prescription for disaster. And at this point in your situation, it's not your business, as bad as that sounds.
As for her not understanding why you are hanging in there, well, that's irrelevant as well. Just as her business is not your concern, your business is not her concern. Just please, please, please do not be about TELLING her that you are hanging in there. As with all other relationship matters, leave it alone.
You are an undercover officer at this point. You are doing your best to continue to fit into her world, but no longer playing the role of loving and devoted husband. Because in this scenario right now, that would be like an undercover officer acting like a DEA agent to a bunch of drug lords. Not good for your health.
If you honestly think that she feels as though time will take care of your situation, I would think that would make it easier for you to allow time to do it's thing and leave this alone.
As for the stages, feel free to read. Usually knowledge is a good thing in the sense that it takes some of the shock out of what we're experiencing. But you should be warned, if you haven't been already, that trying to take what you read and use it to determine HOW FAR ALONG things are is inherently dangerous. It leads to expectations and high hopes which somehow seem to get dashed on a regular basis around here.
Knowledge is a good thing, but hoping for a nice and concrete timeline that you can hang your hopes on is a pipe dream.
Sounds like some of the little things you are doing are good steps to me, but only if they truly reflect CHANGES in your thinking and feeling. Don't put on a show here hoping for a good review. That's manipulation of a high degree and your wife, if she is truly in crisis mode right now, will smell manipulative bullshit a mile away.
And no, no one will understand why she is doing and saying all that she is. Because she has changed in a fundamental way. Your hope is that the change is not permanent, but only time will tell.
You need to continue working on finding YOUR way through this time, without hanging on every action and word from her. That way leads to madness. Survival here - and I'm talking YOUR personal emotional and physical survival - is the main key in hoping for a good resolution at some point. You will NOT convince her through words, and you will not convince her by simply "putting on" some good behaviors for awhile.
If your situation is like most, this is a combination of things going on in her and things that have deteriorated between the two of you over the years because of things you BOTH have done or not done.
You can't do a blessed thing about what's going on inside of her.
You can't do a blessed thing about fixing the things that SHE has done wrong over the years.
You CAN get busy checking yourself out, fixing the things that could/should have been better/different with you, and find your way to the strong, confident, and loving man you have the potential to be.
Blessings,
Bill
"Don't tell me the sky is the limit when there are footprints on the moon."
