Retrouvaille saved me - AN #3

[AnotherNightmare]

So I am finally ready to write down some of the details from our Retrouvaille weekend:

The Retrouvaille weekend was scheduled to start at 8pm on Friday night. We left home shortly after 6pm to drop off our kids at a friend's house and drove on to the retreat center. It is really only a 30-minute drive, so we arrived pretty early and had enough time to put our bags into our room and check out the facilities. There were a lot of tense faces, but nothing really extraordinarily bad. Still I thought we were the couple with the biggest problems and distance between them.

Even though I had tried to tell myself again and again and again to have no expectations, I was still hoping that sometime between Saturday lunchtime and Saturday night I would hear words of apology, the admittance of some of her mistakes or at least some kind of sign that she was really trying to rediscover me this weekend. I was hoping Retrouvaille would break her.

The couple that started the weekend was a couple from Canada that had replaced the couple that runs Retrouvaille for our area, because the wife was sick. I was kind of disappointed, because I thought after talking to the husband before we had registered that he was very empathetic and had the right attitude that would hopefully make an impact on my wife. Little did I know...

Friday night was pretty uneventful. I observed her every once in a while and saw a face that looked like she was hearing what was being said, but she was not really listening, let alone being affected by it. At the end, we went to bed wishing each other a good night.

When we woke up on Saturday, she took a shower first and I put my V-day card next to her bed. She found it while I was showering, and when I came out of the bathroom, she said a friendly thank you. I had brought more, but I did not want to give that to her before Saturday night.

During the first session on Saturday morning, we were asked to write things down about ourselves individually. I wrote a lot of things about myself, but did not really comprehend what I was writing down. I could identify my personal childhood with the story the husband of the presenting couple was telling. It was actually the Canadian couple again. I could see his pain and he had to stop a few times and use a tissue. I was very touched by his story, and my eyes became watery as well.

The session went by and my expectations took over again. I observed my W and was almost getting angry. She had her arms crossed in front of her chest and did not seem impressed at all. I started looking forward to hearing more from the Canadian couple.

During the afternoon, we went outside. My wife started walking fast as though she was running away from me. We did not have an argument, but all the friendliness was gone. I lost hope at that point. What I did notice after the break was that my wife seemed more relaxed, the arms were on her lap, and she also seemed a little friendlier in the letters she wrote to me. But while I saw a lot of the other couples walking around holding hands, she actually rejected me when I tried. There was no real progress, so at the end of the day, I pulled my last ace out of my sleeve (I thought) and gave her a box of chocolates and a necklace. She seemed touched, but her feelings did not change.

Sunday morning started with the Canadian couple again, and it was my turning point. All of a sudden, I saw my behavior for what it was (I had written it down 24 hours early and was shocked when I read it again), I realized what was driving it and what pain it caused to my wife and children. If somebody had asked me last week if I had had a happy childhood I would have answered yes without hesitation. But after dwelling on the story I had heard on Saturday morning and connecting it with my childhood, I realized the emotional abuse, the feelings of guilt everywhere, and the physical and emotional abuse of my brother I had to observe. I realized that I operated the same way, I used guilt to control others (just like my mother) and whenever I feel guilty, I accuse others of controlling me. I realized the behavior patterns going on between my parents and how my mother had substituted me for her husband (not sexually - we essentially had an EA), how she pushed me to be more successful than my father and how I was doing the same thing to S8. I did not get abused physically, because I was an A+ student and could easily meet her expectations, but I saw the images in my mind how she yelled at and beat my brother for falling below her standards.

The worst part that caused my M to fail up to now was not really that I had to live through this, but that I had locked every emotion and memory of my childhood away. I had never told anyone about this, yet it was driving all my actions and behavior. When I finally told my wife on Sunday, she changed completely. I cried, she hugged and held me. I felt broken open like the bud of a flower.

From then on, everything changed for us. With every minute that we sat in that room and listened to the couples telling their stories, we moved closer to each other. In the end, we decided to attend mass. At the end of mass, I could hardly control myself because I started thinking about everything that had happened. In an incredible twist of fate, the story of this Canadian couple had given me the strength to open my heart to the most special person in my life. I began to think this must be God's way of showing me the right way. After mass, I hardly made it to our room before I started crying uncontrollably and used up all the remaining tissues. My wife held me and just said "I have never seen you cry". It was the most emotional 5 minutes, and we just kept hugging each other.

On our way out, we ran into the Canadian couple again, and both of us felt compelled to tell them an abbreviated version of our story. I can only thank them for being there, telling their story and supporting us. I do not want to diminish anything the other two couples and everybody else who supported that weekend did. I am sure a lot of others were as touched as I was by their stories. We went home and picked up our kids. After our kids went to bed, we kept talking. We said good night to each other, and 10 minutes later my wife started talking again. We both slept only a few hours and continued talking all Monday, holding hands, holding each other. We dialogue every day, and we both enjoy it. I am looking forward to the first post-session on Sunday and I think she is, too.

I guess in the end it was the last few minutes of the entire weekend when things truly turned around. We are still not there, the trust on her side has not been rebuilt, and there are still a lot of things that could go wrong. But I think we both are cautiously optimistic about our marriage. I feel blessed and honored to have met my wife and accept her love, patience and all her other qualities as a gift.

God bless!
AN