You may be referring to my posts about job stuff as insulting. If that is the case, I want to apologize to you. I was not trying to insult you. I was offering up that it was a big factor with my wife in my situation.
Any of those friends who aren't marriage friendly, or the hard core "single" person putting their business causing us to jump around like a hot potato, or to get dumped, or the be cheated on. We don't like those friends. But our spouse did not have to listen, and like you said, perhaps the spouse aligned themself with this person because they wanted to do precisely that.
I have no doubt that my Wife, or people in general on pretty much any topic, tend to seek out council of people who will play to their present mindset, even if it is subconsciously.
Heck, I've helped a lot of folks come to grips with various problems in their lives. To put myself "outside" this situation, my advice to "parallel-universe-Bummedout"s wife would be to ask her if maybe she is taking some stress or aggression out on him. I'd ask "well is he even looking for a job? Is he doing anything to bring in what he can? Is he mean to you? Does show you respect?"
When people have come to me, I pretty much always try to 'err on the side of healing" a relationship, be it friends, family, or even relative strangers. Heck, before we even dated, I coaxed her into calling one of her sisters she hadn't in a few years. Unfortunately, I'm not 'parallel universe Bummedout" I'm just . . . bummed out.
Life may be short, but . . . well . . . it actually IS short, now that I think about it . . . . particularly when compared to planetary formation and stuff.
You may be referring to my posts about job stuff as insulting. If that is the case, I want to apologize to you. I was not trying to insult you. I was offering up that it was a big factor with my wife in my situation.
Oh no, it wasn't your post I was referencing. Yours wasn't insultng, and thank you. I am pretty sure that my employment status is part of the issue, I just suspect its getting more of the focus than it normally would because . . .well . . . I think because I kinda put up with it because I understood she was under a lot of stress. Her father simply won't listen to anything she says, and her daughter treats her like crap and she really just folds to both of them . . .I think I'm doing a crappy job of explaining this, I'm sorry.
Life may be short, but . . . well . . . it actually IS short, now that I think about it . . . . particularly when compared to planetary formation and stuff.
Another important thing to bring up is that my employment status didn't come up hardly at all before a few days ago, and when it did before her 'I'm done' speech, it wasn't like she seemed angry or even particularly blameful or anything. The reason I think it might be displaced blame is because when she gets off the phone with her parents or after her daughter talks to her particularly badly, she seems to snap at me a lot in the past few months. I just kinda accepted it, thinking that was like altruistic or something. In hindsight, I think I just made myself easy to blame or something. I'm just clueless and trying to figure out where this is going. I love her very much.
Last edited by Bummedout; 04/30/1006:07 AM.
Life may be short, but . . . well . . . it actually IS short, now that I think about it . . . . particularly when compared to planetary formation and stuff.
No worries...I understand the stress you are under. Just wanted to make sure I didn't offend you. That's not my purpose here.
If I may, I'll offer you up something to consider that I read in a couple of different books, and my counselor confirmed to me. In your recent post, you were thinking out loud about questions you'd like her to consider.
"Is he looking for a job?" "Is he doing anything to bring in what he can?" "Is he mean to you?" "Does show you respect?"
I also wondered if my wife was giving me any credit at all for what I was doing.
The answer was simple from her perspective..."no". Typically, the walk away wife is so focused on how she feels, how she hurts, etc, that she is not concerned (at least right now) about how you feel.
As I mentioned in an earlier post, that did change, but it took time (a couple of months).
My situation is not exactly the same as yours, but I think some generalities can be taken in regard to reactions of husbands and wives.
Similar to your situation, my wife did not mention anything about job stuff at first either. What I discovered, though, was that she had grown angry about it over time, but had never really told me it bothered her. I have not experienced unemployment, but had changed jobs a few times and brought home less money each time.
Wow, that's pretty much how it feels, like I get zilch for trying the best I can, and panned completely for where I fall short even though it's something I really don't have much control over.
Still kinda bites though to think our 'love' centers around a job. We could live in a cave with two sticks and a rock as worldly possessions, and I'd still love her. I'm feeling a bit better now about coming here, My thanks to most of you folks.
Life may be short, but . . . well . . . it actually IS short, now that I think about it . . . . particularly when compared to planetary formation and stuff.
I don't know how old your wife is, but my wife was 40 years old when she decided to drop the bomb in December 2008.
I was just about to start a ten month period of no contract work. This, I believe has been a contributory factor towards our divorce.
I believe my wife evaluated our relationship at that point and probably felt I could not provide the financial security she wanted. I, like you would have lived anywhere, but for the women out there please do not think I am making assumptions here, and without trying to be generalistic or chauvanistic I believe women want to feel as though they are with somebody who will provide for them and their family on a consistent basis as historically, men have been the major bread winners.
It seems a poor 'excuse' but I was interested to see the poster who said that WAW's are hugely concerned about their spouses income. It should not make a difference but clearly it does.
Bomb dropped: 19/12/08 Me:48 WAW:41 D:10 S:6 Married: 15 years
My assumption is that you are here because your wife seems to be giving up on your relationship.
Part of that giving up may very well be seeking counsel from somebody who affirms the position she's already firming up. You have already told her how you feel about that.
In an healthy marriage, both partners share the emotional stuff with one another, and they don't need to share a bunch of negative stuff with a third party to get their approval for feeling negative about the marriage.
So... my next assumption is that your wife will probably not listen to this attempt at setting boundaries and will instead see it as you trying to manipulate her or control her (I could be wrong, but it is common "persuing" behavior when somebody is pulling away from you) because your marriage is not currently in a healthy state. It happens, and I am not saying it is your fault. It takes strength, patience, and courage to stick it out in a marriage when things get tough, and it takes a great deal of courage, flexibility and understanding to face and overcome problems in a relationship.
Finally, my last assumption is that financial stress is a large contributing factor to the problems you are having.
Based on those assumptions what I (and most everybody here) am trying to get you to do is focus on self-improvement. It could be by re-doubling job seeking efforts, it could be by doing a bunch of smaller things (that you would need to do if you were on your own anyway) that she wouldn't expect you to do that contribute to your emotional, mental and financial well being.
You know your life better than anyone, so in the end you are going to have to figure out where you can do your 180s.
Here's an excercise, try to come up with a list of 3 things that your wife has complained or hinted about more than once that bothered her over the course of your marriage where you could do a 180, and doing the 180 would make you a better, stronger and more secure person.
The idea is not to beat yourself up here; the idea is to identify areas where you can improve and empower yourself for the sake of self-improvement and empowerment.
M-47,W-40,No kids D-filed 5/27/2010 Piecing - 10/21/2010 -=Soon to be banned=-
I don't know how old your wife is, but my wife was 40 years old when she decided to drop the bomb in December 2008.
I was just about to start a ten month period of no contract work. This, I believe has been a contributory factor towards our divorce.
I believe my wife evaluated our relationship at that point and probably felt I could not provide the financial security she wanted. I, like you would have lived anywhere, but for the women out there please do not think I am making assumptions here, and without trying to be generalistic or chauvanistic I believe women want to feel as though they are with somebody who will provide for them and their family on a consistent basis as historically, men have been the major bread winners.
It seems a poor 'excuse' but I was interested to see the poster who said that WAW's are hugely concerned about their spouses income. It should not make a difference but clearly it does.
I met a man who was worried about losing his wife because he was unemployed due to the terrible economy. He said he was treated badly as a result and she was having an affair. He said that he has to find a job if he wants to save his marriage.
I told him that it shouldn't matter, that his wife should love him regardless, but he was saying thats how she is. I thought it was rather cold of her. I guess we should understand our spouses motives for getting with us so we can understand were we sit with them. Just say you where rich for a period of time and you met your wife. You think your in love, and due to circumstance you are reduced to "regular" wages, and theres nothing you can do about it for the forseeable future. Your spouse is angry, shows you less love, pulls away because you are not as attractive to them. Is this right? I'm not saying its me, but some of us are in that position.
For the man that I described earlier, it seems that the marriage and the love was dependant on him having a job.
