Waiting More Than a Dozen Years

[Bagheera]

Good grief, TEGH: no wonder we end up circling each other like dogs, playing a game of point & counter-point and never getting anywhere constructive. Ours is a case of the rare "Rational" Inventor (ENTP) vs. the rare "Idealist" Counselor (INFJ}. To quote Wikipedia's "Inventor" entry:

"In arguments they [ENTP's] may use debating skills, often to the significant disadvantage of their opponent. This strategy can backfire, however, by alienating those seeking a cooperative relationship rather than a combative one—a typical source of conflict between Rationals and Idealists, for example."

While I don't feel particularly "disadvantaged," I DO feel very ineffective in being able to give you a hand. The biggest mistake that I made was in offering you an admittedly amateur "diagnosis" and self-help book "treatment program," early on, only to find out later that you are married to an (assumedly) accomplished therapist who utilizes her training as ammunition in marital disagreements with you, trying to diagnose you and treat you as a client, *rather* than her husband, and who has also turned your previous Marriage Counseling sessions into a two-on-one exercise in treating *you* and avoiding anything to do with HER. As a highly-trained psychological professional, she obviously considers herself to be *above* any of the common maladies and conditions afflicting her clients.

Were I in your shoes, I'd be pretty averse to further diagnosis and "treatment" recommendations also.

So let's turn this around and diagnose HER for a change. You wrote:

...she and her siblings all tell me that I am so much like their father. Laid back, even keeled most of the time, dry, punny humor, and flashes of insight and knowing that seemed to come out of nowhere (how did he know that?). We all jokingly say that she married her father when she married me.

Start there. Many, if not most of us, have a natural tendency to recreate the relationship conditions of our childhood in marriage, even if those conditions were not good ones (a form of "transference," to use the jargon). It's intrinsically familiar to us, a slot that we know automatically how to fall in to, and (here's the important point) has its roots in an unconscious desire to make "the story turn out right" -- to find someone who will finally come through and love us the way that we've always dreamed of.

Often, this natural tendency can make your marriage just as frustrating or miserable as your childhood. Example: I know that I did the above with my own marriage. I married a woman who had the same intimacy-avoidant traits as my mother, whilst being an intimacy-craving individual myself. It was frustrating as hell, for 20+ years, until we entered counseling and figured it out.

If you will then, describe your wife's childhood and teenage years, focusing on her relationship with her father? How did this develop into adulthood? What patterns (good or bad) is she potentially repeating in her relationship with you?

-- B.