Rough night

[Telemark]

Lvmywife, I agree with what's been said. I think your W has some very deep issues she cannot - or will not - face. Her reluctance to open up to you, to be open and vulnerable, has caused frustration within you, I suspect. You knew something was not right but couldn't put a name to it.

I say this because I am in the same situation. My W has issues from her childhood forward that she has stuffed down inside her, and has never done any work to look at them or leave them behind.

Nothing you can do right now, except reinvent yourself. I'm going to repost a reply to your first thread from Bworl; it is beautifully accurate:

"Everyone sees the title and comes running (I suppose that's what marketing is all about). Then you read the books. Then read them again. Then start REALLY thinking about them and digesting what they have to say...


...and you realize how much work there is in front of you

...and how little of it has to do with your wife

...or your marriage


Bad patterns of behavior can be let go for years and years, making us think that who we've become must not be all that bad.

Meanwhile our spouse is dying the death of a thousand small cuts that have them bleeding out what love they once had for us."

The work that you do from this minute forward has to be on your own self, your own issues, your own self-image, self-esteem and self-respect. And that is so opposite of what we think we should do; we think we need to "work on" or "save" our marriages.

No. We need to work on and save ourselves. And even then, odds are that our spouses will continue walking. That is the sad, painful truth. And we can't force them to stay, force them to love us, force them to think about us or to even feel any kind of caring toward us.

In the end, we will be better men & women, better parents, better friends and better partners for another chance at love that may or may not come. And we will know that we did all we could do to stand in the breach for our marriages.