Over the Shock - Detaching and GALing

[Thinker]

I got the impression she did not want me to hold her, or even to notice that she was crying. She was looking straight ahead, not at me, and I only noticed because I saw her quickly wiping away a tear. Sitting facing forward, her legs and feet pulled up on the couch sideways between us, but pulled in tight so they didn't touch me, leaning on the arm of the couch away from me. Her whole body language was saying "don't touch me"

My Sister and my W used to get along pretty well, but a couple of months ago there was an accident while my sister was babysitting for our kids. She put our 7-month old on a counter and didn't hold him while she turned to get something. He rolled off and cracked his head. My W and I spent the night in the hospital with him, and he is fine, but it was traumatic. My sister was extremely sorry and has apologized profusely, but my W has never forgiven her.

I'm not sure if this has anything to do with my W's current upset at the concert. I checked, and can get another ticket and asked my W if she wanted to go and she said no (again). I think it is more that I never used to go out (thought my job as a Father was to always stay home with the family) and she did fairly frequently. She and probably resented me for it and/or looked down on me as being "boring". Now I am going out, and didn't invite her along, and she feels resentful at being left at home.

Anyway, I do wish I had a better way to interpret my W's moods and silence when we are together. I really have no idea whether it is:

"I am unhappy and stressed and I wish you would be more supportive and closer to me - but I feel resentful if I have to ask or make the first move"

- or if it is -

"I am unhappy and stressed because you are close to me here and it reminds me that our R is not good and I am thinking of all of the real and perceived bad things in our R and I wish you would leave so I would not be so stressed"

- or -

"This feels so normal for us to be sitting here but I feel so guilty and unhappy with myself because I don't feel close to you and am still thinking of OM"

- or even -

"I am upset about something that has nothing to do with us, but don't feel close enough to you to tell you."

In any case, the only thing I can do is not let it impact my mood or my plans, let her know that I am there if she reaches out, and otherwise do my own thing. I can definitely say that her moods don't impact mine in anywhere near the way that they would a couple of months ago. I am no longer walking on quite the eggshells I was.

My real fear is that this is too close to the way we were in some earlier parts of our M which she now says were miserable. She was unhappy, did not directly communicate what or why, so I continued doing my own thing, and our current sitch is the result of her resentment at that building up over many years. The only real difference is that in those early years, if she did say something, I did not listen very well. Now I would at least try.