Hi Stuck, hope your grandmother is doing okay by now. It is hard when they are that age and break a hip. It was very typical for your wife to behave the way she did. First, when you told her over the phone......she had that "distance" as her protection from you and she could afford to show her true concern for your grandmother without fretting that you would get the wrong signals. However, once the two of you were face to face, she had to put that wall of protection up again to wort off any misconceptions you might perceive if she were to show any "softness" toward you. I know to you men it sounds horrible when I use terms like a "wall of protection" but that is how she is thinking. Look at it this way, if she had started crying and was showing a picture of weakness out of her strong concern over your grandmother.......would you have been tempted to put your arms around her to comfort her? Would you have thought...."At last, a sign that the wife I know has returned". That is why she is really trying to put a wall between the two of you. You see, when I decided to stay in my M, I still kept a wall built around me b/c I knew it would take very, very little for my H to think "I was back" emotionally and he would start trying to show me affection, etc., that I was not ready for. Your W is saying that she is concerned about your grandmother. I'm sure she loves her after being in the family this long. However, she is afraid to give you any room.....afraid you will get all mushy.....or use that excuse to put your arms around her, etc.
To say these things hurt you, I know. I am telling you how it is for a WAW the best I can. However, if you can stick with it, I am proof that she can come out of the fog.
Based on what LBH's have said, about the hardest thing for them is not to be able to show affection to their WAW. It will take her a long time, Stuck. I remember when my H just came in where I was on the computer and kissed my shoulder. I wanted to tell him that I was not ready for that, but at the same time.....I did not want to hurt him. It is the feeling of "rejection" that the LBH feels so stronly. It isn't like the WAW doesn't know that......but she can't help it. It is taking all of her power to stay in a M and not run away. In fact, she knows this so well that it adds more guilt to her every growing list of "sins". Both of you are going through a terrible time separately and together. If you can keep telling yourself that "this too shall pass".......and try very, very hard not to think of her rejecting you....but that she is trying to get well....maybe that will help you through some difficult times such as this.
If you were told that this was a disease she had and it was going to take a year or maybe two before she could be completely well......could you hang in there in spite of how she acted?
Talk to you later, Sandi
It is not about what you feel should work in your M. It is about doing the work that gets the right results. Do what works!
