WAW - Very confused and devestated - pt 4

[confusedinpa]

There may be many reasons. Maybe she still feels the hurt. Most likely she still has not healed, i.e. she has not let go of her resentments towards you and/or your behavior. And by pursuing her, by trying to convince her otherwise, by making her think and talk about her hurt, you and your C just reinforce those resentments. She is probably not able to get closure on this. And as long as that is the case, she will not try love. The most important thing for you to understand is that she needs time and you need to give her that time. You must be patient.

I guess the part that I don't understand/see is how is she trying to "heal". Perhaps her moving to the spare bedroom is her way to do that. She had said about 4-5 weeks ago how she wanted to spend a couple of days by herself somewhere to think but didn't know how to do that. I told her I would help her do that if she wanted to but she never did. Perhaps I should take the kids with me to go visit a couple my friends. I guess that's an idea.

To tell you the truth, I still do not think that your MC sessions are very productive. It just seems to remind her of her hurt and to reinforce her resentments.

I do tend to agree about the counseling sessions with my wife. We seem to spend a lot of time in the past. I really want to ask her about retroville, but don't think the timing is quite right. What do you think?

Yes, a resentful R does not work. But you need to let go of your anger and resentments as well. If I read how often you write this about your W, it seems to me you resent her for not letting go of the hurt. If she is resentful, you are most likely, too. Compassionate is actually the opposite of resentful. Or at a minimum you cannot be compassionate and resentful at the same time. If you are not able to see her side of the story - and you prove that over and over again with what you write here - you are not compassionate. If you are not compassionate, you are probably resentful or angry. That is what you need to work on.

I am begining to understand what you're saying about compassionate. The compassionate/empathy thing has always been a struggle for me. I have shut that down over such a long period of time that it's hard for me to do. After I'm done with the No More Mr. Nice Guy book, I will read the Love without Hurt book. Hopefully that will help. I do appreciate any insight that you can share with me though. It looks like you have given it alot of thought/soul searching.

Thanks for all your help!