I lurk around, and if anything strikes me, I will give my two cents, wrong or not, lol! I know this is hard believe me, but the more you do things, go out, go to the lake, (I have a lake cabin myself that was an awesom get away) or whatever, the easier this will become. Contact by you, will almost always lead to disappointment because you will not get the response that you have conjured up in your own mind.
The lake house has been a great retreat through all of this. I plan to head out and go camping at my deer lease this weekend with my friends. I still have my ups and downs, but my buddies usually don't let me get down too low.
I felt torn about leaving for the weekend at first because the W said that was one of her many reasons to leave. This made me wonder if I should give up fishing and hunting completely to pursue turning my marriage around. I even offered to sell my boat and drop the hunting lease when everything first happened. Looking at things now, if I were to give these things up completely, I wouldn't be being true to myself.
I have come to the realization that the hunting and fishing is not what the core problem is. Sure, it may have a negative impression to her but she always encouraged these activities for the 15 yrs that we have been together. She has been invited on every trip that I have ever gone on. If it was starting to bother her, she could had talked to me about it.
The distance is helping me clear my mind and look at things with a clearer perspective as well. I do love her and miss her. I also want to work on the marriage. However, I also realize that I can't make her do anything and that I can only control myself.
M 30 WAW 29 T 15 M 5 ILYBNILWY 3/8/09 Separated 3/14/09
hello my friend how are you? sorry ive not been around but things have changed for me, my thread locked up and ive only just realised so i opened a new one. your right about not giving up the things you love doing and it may only be a small part in the contribution of your break up, if things do take a turn for you and your marriage gets back on track (hope so), you may have to compromise a little on it, but im sure you dont need me telling you that, i now know how it feels to have my wife back home and i so need you to have these feelings im having, i will pray for you man, good luck and take care, hang in there im sure things will happen for you, just keep believing,
We all must do the things that make us happy, when we are in a relationship we also must do the things that make us both happy. Hell, for my wife's birthday in April I gave her ballroom dance lessons that I will participate with her (she has been hinting for 15 years she wanted to do this and this year I finally gave in, wonder why?).
By the way, just because you invite her does not mean that it is OK in her mind for you to go. I have experienced the same thing regarding college football weekends at our alma mater. She would rather stay in the hotel room or shop than go, crazy I know! But this year I have already planned complete weekends instead of me going to the game, drinking too much and then being an ass for the rest of the night! lol
Balance in life and in a relationship is very important and you should strive for it everyday, week, month, and year.
I'm going to offer a dissenting opinion. While I am wholeheartedly in favor of GAL activities and being true to yourself, I can see how spending a lot of time at the cabin could be a bad thing.
From your wife's pov you are doing more of the same - hunting and fishing, things she is neither interested nor involved in. (Yes, if it bothered her so much she should have said something but that's not the point right now.) So why should she come back to a man who is still more interested in those activities than her?
I would recommend engaging in some different GAL activities. Try something new that you've always wanted to try. You need to have her guessing at what's going on with you, not assuming that you will never change.
So...what else are you interested in? Home improvement projects? Wood working? Playing piano? Basketball? Japanese movies?
If you love somebody, set them free. http://tinyurl.com/2empx2g
I understand what you are saying and I don't want to push her further away.
We still have not had any contact since before last week when she sent a text. Of course I have thought of making contact every day, but I have talked myself out of it. The space seems to continue to help my mental state as well as I am not feeling as low as I was. The down side is that I constantly question if I am doing the right things, without any contact or feedback it is hard to tell.
As far as finding other things to do besides hunting and fishing, I am kind of struggling with this. My passion has always been in the outdoors. I am adding new activities with friends (i.e. art show, catching bands, etc...), but I still get the greatest satisfaction from being in the outdoors. Maybe I just haven't found the right niche yet, but I will keep looking. During the week, I am in the gym every night for 2 hours or more. It makes me feel really good about myself and is getting me in better shape than I have been since I was a teenager. It just doesn't leave much time during the weeknights for much else.
M 30 WAW 29 T 15 M 5 ILYBNILWY 3/8/09 Separated 3/14/09
hi making_it with my situation i did a little NC, not much just a little, now my wife and i are back together now, after a few days of her being home she told me that when i didnt speak to her or text or show any interest she thought its that same old person again, i will never be as important as him, and it gave her negative thoughts,
not saying she wanted showering with gifs and love, she just needed to see i cared and she was important, now this worked for me and i cant say it will work for you, but i do know what my wife told me and if id of done the complete NC we wouldn't be together today, take care
I was thinking about waiting at least until this Thursday to make contact with her. That would make it two full weeks since we last talked. Does this sound like a good idea?
I still haven't heard anything about what she is thinking about since she met with our mutual friends last week. That was when she told them that the space is helping her and that she had realized that there are other things making her unhappy that weren't due to our marriage. While this sounded promising, I didn't want to get my hopes up. She also confirmed to them that she wasn't sure what she wanted and had no idea where to even start if we were to try and get back together.
Any suggestions/advice on where to go from here would be much appreciated.
M 30 WAW 29 T 15 M 5 ILYBNILWY 3/8/09 Separated 3/14/09
sounds like a good idea to me, im going off my experiance and i did the same, i contacted my wife and just said hi and i wanted her to know i was thinking about her and asked how she was doing, of course her answer was "im doing really well". when you do speak to her its her you talk about, not your relationship and not you unless she asks, dont arrange another call, just say bye for now and that you will be in touch, that way its showing her you care and your not pressuring her into calling you,
my wife told a friend that same thing about stuff affecting our marriage that wasn't down to our marriage, it wasn't long after this she realised that it wasn't just down to me, and she wanted to come home, she also told me she also didn't know what she wanted and was fearful on how to rebuild our lives together, then she told me beacuse she knew i cared and loved her and i made her feel IMPORTANT, she knew we had a solid foundation to start again. i cant stress enough how making her feel important helped, this was the main factor on her coming home. this was down to the fact i hadn't made her fell like that for a long time so she felt i had changed, me speaking to her, me asking about her, me putting her first, me asking about her interest's, etc etc,
now if you did all these things before your wife left this is not going to work for you, i understand people adivsing the complete NC but im my case it was no good, and it could be the same for you too, good luck and take care
