Waiting More Than a Dozen Years

[TeaEarlGreyHot]

And that's what I'm weighing, not whether my current wife will find another man (or woman) that could reawaken her. Frankly, she does not need me.

I meant to add this: Qued to Dire Straits (Money for Nothin):

"I want my QVC"

But we are in day 4 of the great freeze. She won't talk to me, won't be in the same room with me, will barely ackowledge my presence.

I guess she did not like being told that rather than exhibiting a little consideration of others and giving them some space to exist, she just keeps expanding her domain to occupy all the available space until they get fed up and decide to push back.

She was very unhappy when I could cite the statistics of when and how she did things. She asked me how I would feel, I said it did not matter. If the statistics sounded close, why would I challenge them and then asked "would you have done stuff differently if you knew that someone was counting how many times you did a certain thing (and if the answer is yes, then which is the true reflection of you?)" Although the realy nasty therapist stuff didn't come up until later, it did occur to me to ask why she and her staff observe children and families from behind one-way mirrors.


Before I even gave her very recent example in the previous 24 hours where I said nothing, even though I knew I was correct, I pointed out that I was going to regret doing that because she was going to turn it around and say something like "you just have to be right." And then she went and did it which just proved the point. But what she did not like was I told her that it was an intentional choice on my part not to correct her ("no matter what") and that the space for virtually any conversation was entirely hers.

"I will tell you I don't know even if I do know." There is a reason why people defer to you. She told me that she thought I was just trying to avoid conflict (seems I heard that here, too). No, I'm just worn down by 23 years of fighting this and I've just given up. Some things are just not worth worrying about and I'll just keep withdrawing topics that I'll engage in.

The latest thing is political and I pointed out that i am not her political enemy so why keep picking a fight with me (I've largely stopped watching the various political shows and I acknowledged plausible deniability if I don't know and don't watch, I'm not lying.

"You think it's okay to stop talking to me?"

I think it's okay to give you the whole stage because from all the evidence it really does not matter what I think, what I want or what I know. You are the world's foremost expert (lots of protest over that).

We got back to the incident from 21 years ago that she had brought up a number of weeks ago as evidence as to why she says she should be afraid of me when I get angry. Although we both agree that over the years there have probably been 6 times when I've probably yelled and displayed something like driving away angry, I've never threatened her. I pointed out that it also leaves me nowhere and no way to display anger (I assert it is a way to control me) other than to walk away, not say anything, and give her the entire stage to think and do as she pleases even if she is wrong and dismisses me about something I know about.

I'll be happy to be corrected, she said. Well, she just proved that she wasn't.

I think she was a little taken back because I had recalled many of the details of that incident from 21 years ago, even though I had long since forgotten about the incident. I told her

"you brought it up"

It took a while to recall some of the particulars of that fight and I still can't recall it all. It did involve a trip to go to Travis AFB and after I was done, I was going to Lake Tahoe to ski. The ultimate result was I left my skis at her place and I did not go skiing. I can't remember why that trip was such a contentious one.

But I suggested that maybe it was wrong to gather up all my stuff from her condo and then throw it all out the front door onto the short lawn in front of my car.

"Maybe, I should have just taken all of my stuff out the front door and put it in my car calmly and gone home. But what I remember was it was stuff just like this, just like the way everything gets twisted around and how difficult it was."

"I was planning to leave and I wasn't just going home so I could catch my plane the next day. I was planning to leave you forever. No calls, no coming back, no second chances, I was done. And if I had done that we would not be sitting here today arguing. I don't know what brought me back that time, but I do know my reaction to throw everything out the door was because I was so very finidhed arguing with you."

She told me how her reaction was not rational but gave no explanation of the basis. Instead she turned back to me asking me if how I react is from my past. Well, that's how she defended her view for the bext couple of minutes until she went to the therapists Bible and my past.

The DSM-IV and how many things she could find in there.

I think another therapist trained in these things would tell her that is a really stupid thing to do

Oh yes, the words "passive agressive" came up.

Towards the end she told me, I hope you know how brilliant I think you are.

She also started to get the message about the space to be who you are and she said, I hope I've given you the space to be who you are. I thought too much damage has been done and emotions are too raw, because if I lead you through ther house to our closet, then to look at each room and see your imprint not mine, then I take you through my music, my photography (which she brought up as something that drove her crazy), and then the whole wide world of sexual expression that she had effectively cut off from a fully informed POV of what I was looking for from the beginning of the relationship, no she hasn't given me much space at all.

In fact, I came away with this...if it's so easy for her to code me in the DSM-IV and that is the first time in 23 years she has ever gone that route, might she also be using the same knowledge to play me, as a strategy, to keep me at a certain point in this marriage.

That is what is on the agenda next.

She went out to get her nails done with one of her friends on Saturday afternoon. She hasn't spoken more than about 2 dozen words to me since then.