People: Be very careful when selecting a therapist. They can be totally counterproductive. My wife's therapist is allowing her to feel comfortable with her irrational decisions. She is supporting her and not addressing her real problems with communication and intimacy. She accepts my wife's decisions as rational and thoughtful.
I know. The therapists thought that for each of our own comfort levels we would ping-pong between the two until we felt more comfortable with one or the other. The therapists knew that bouncing back and forth wasn't a good idea long term. But it's true, her therapist is a MONSTER in my eyes. Way, way too accomodating of her feelings. My wife tells her that she feels like I am an "intruder" when I come home from work. The intruder: the person who loves her, loves our kids, would walk through fire for them, who has been inspired to change the parts of myself that didn't make her happy, the intruder who will do anything to save our family. Talk about not seeing the glass half-full. And then, after our miserable session, she asks me last night if I want to order out Japanese food with her. I wanted to tell her that "I feel like an intruder, so I will fetch my own dinner, thank you." Or "Bruce Willis, here, feels like an intruder. So I will pass on dinner with you." Instead I went along with it and then got in my car and left for a few hours after the kids were down. My mother nailed it when she said that I am making things too easy for her. That I am letting her control everything and I am not letting her see the ramifications of the hurt she is causing.
p.s. What she doesn't think about is that Bruce Willis and Demi got a divorce because he was screwing every 22 year old starlet in Hollywood. That's not me, sorry. So I have no respect for that analogy.
I am definitely not going near her therapist again. She is evil. My wife said she would see whomever I wished. It's as though she is saying, bring on any therapist you want...nothing is going to change my mind. I had a great session with a DB coach today and she believe that couples therapy is probably something we shouldn't be in right now. She gave me some great advice, which I plan to carry out. I am banging on the marriage door and she's got it bolted shut. I need to use another door -- such as the Friendship door -- to tr to connect with her. The more I demand she works on the M, the deeper she digs her heels in, and it's going nowhere. Appeal to our friendship and stop pursuing and remove the pressure of working on the M as a way to making some kind of connection. Then, if she responds, I use the tactic of pulling back and becoming more mysterious and let her experience the feeling of loss. It's something she has no concept of at the moment.
My therapist wants to talk to my W in a private session. According to my therapist, our relationship is distant, but it's anything but toxic. She said she herself has had a bumpy road through life and I think she wants to give my W a dose of reality, and to tell her she owes it to her kids and family to give this time and effort. But here is the rub: I know my wife would see this a "caving in" again to what I want, and that was one of her grievances. She's been holding firm in her attitude not to reconcile. I would love some insight or cases about any situation where the W finally cracked and realized that the family was worth saving. Sometimes it seems so hopeless. We have been in this sitch for about 10 weeks and there are times when I feel like screaming. I don't understand how she can still let me do all the things around the house and yard that need fixing, and she never gets in my way when I offer to do something around the house (repair the toilet, fix the baby gate, etc.). She brings me along with the kids to visit her parents and it makes me think, "If I am so insignificant, why are you still leaning on me? Why do you ask me to do odds and ends? Why don't you cut the cord and take care of everything on your own as if you were on your own? She's living a fantasy in that she thinks I will eventually cave in to what she wants and that I will live close by so that I can be with the kids as often as I'd like and I can still be there for her in a pinch. By what she fails to consider that the idea of a separation is not mutual and will only lead to anger and animosity on my end -- and no, it won't be easy and convenient for her. When I told her that I might be forced to leave the state her facial expression changed to disbelief: "What do you MEAN you might leave the state?!?!" I may leave b/c of YOU. I can't be a part-time dad that has to deal with the constant reminder that my W did not want to even TRY to reconcile. And then the day is going to come when the boys grow up and ask, "Why did you and Mom split?" and I won't have an answer for them. Two books, A Case For Marriage and The Unexpected Legacy Of Divorce offer some of the most sobering statistics for anyone staring at divorce. It's not pom-pom you-can-make-it-and-still-have-a-healthy-family-life nonsense. That is a fallacy. I wish the aliens that took my W return her soon.
