Over the Shock and GALing 6

[AlexEN]

Well, to put my 2 cents worth in ... I've been on the receiving end of that. Not for a good while. But is *sucks*. It sucks to sit on the couch by yourself night after night .... it sucks almost more, I think, to sit on the couch next to a man who has fried his brain so hard that he might as well be on Mars for all the sense of meaningful presence or engagement you get out of him. (No, no other engineer-type's wife out there would know *anything* about that, no sir ....)

I can even almost understand the WAWs who have emotionally detached so completely *from motives of self-protection* in those circumstances that they feel they could never let down their guard again. Understand, but not endorse. If she's got a man who is willing to TRY to reprioritize and reengage, I think she owes it to everyone involved to really give it the old college try herself.

Note: If this was a wife who was simultaneously whining about her husband's earning power/pressuring him to advance in his career .... then her feelings of abandonment have no validity. She made her choice. I mean, her feelings have validity in that they are now facts to be grappled with, but the husband should confidently bypass the guilt portion of the program. IMHO.

Kett,

Thanks for the insight... Very well put...

My W, for past 5 years, perhaps because of her sense of abandonment, was focused on building her dream house, which would have mortgaged us to the hilt (now we're just hemorrhaging from still owning the lot which we cannot sell), which in turn made me feel like I had to work that much harder to keep up... So, even though we're both to blame, the "solution" to her need (a distraction from her loneliness) only reinforced that from which she was hoping to escape...

If she's got a man who is willing to TRY to reprioritize and reengage, I think she owes it to everyone involved to really give it the old college try herself.

I did more than TRY. I DID reprioritize and reengage, but by then she had sought the attention elsewhere. Ironically, my reprioritization has been observed and noted by the kids. We've reached almost complete role reversal in terms of "familial detachment" and "emotional distance", so I can empathize with how she felt then.

Too bad, because with the "old college try", methinks there would have been a point of balance somewhere between the two, one that would have served each of us well and, perhaps even more importantly, the children we brought into this world could have been served even better.

-AlexEN


-Hey, Thinker, sorry for the hijack... Kett's post just got me going...