Living in the trenches....Thread #5

[Navyguy]

This could be a long one. W and I had a talk last night. Warning: there’s some definite DB no-no’s in here.

Well, last night after we got home from dinner, I was in our room folding clothes and putting them away and W came in and asked me if I was ok. I decided it would be a good time to bring up how she’s been treating me lately. I’ll try to do this 2step style:

W: Are you ok?

M: No, not really. I’ve been having a hard time with how you’ve been treating me the past few weeks. I feel like you’re purposely not being nice to me.

W: I decided that I wasn’t going to try to save your feelings or keep things bottled up anymore.

M: That’s ok, but that’s not what’s bothering me. It feels like you are going out of your way to be mean to me.

W: Well when I act normal to you, you seem to think that everything is great between us, and I’m not there. Then we always have this same argument about how I’m feeling and you not understanding why.

M: We’ve only had that discussion once in the 7 months that you’ve been back, and that was because I thought things had changed, but then you suddenly started being not nice to me again and I had no idea why. I understand that we are not in a good place. But I don’t understand why you can’t be yourself around me and be nice to me like you are with everyone else. I feel like you are nicer to total strangers than you are to me a lot of the time.

W: That’s because strangers haven’t hurt me like you did.

And here’s where things went downhill…as usual, she brought up the past, and I took the bait. @#$%.

M: I know that I wasn’t a perfect husband, but there’s a big difference between being a less-than-perfect husband and a bad husband. I have spent a lot of time figuring out what I did that was wrong, figuring out how it made you feel, and making sure that it will never happen again. I don’t know what else I can do. I spent a lot of time working with 2 different IC’s…and I told them everything. They both had a very hard time understanding what I did that was so bad.

W: Well that pisses me off that the counselors were telling you that. You treated me like crap and made me feel terrible for 7 years. You can’t understand how I felt. Try living like you are now for 7 years.

Doing some quick math in my head….we’ve only known each other for 10 years, we’ve been married for 7 ½ years, and it’s been at least 4 years since we’ve had an argument about anything other than me pushing her to come back into our marriage. But anyways…I didn’t say that…

M: There was never a time where I made a conscious effort to not be nice to you.

W: Well every single time I tried to talk to you, you would call me a liar or a martyr and it made me madder and madder until all I could see was a selfish person that I hated.

M: I don’t think I ever called you a liar and I used the word martyr once. I know I fought unfairly, and I would rationalize my wrong actions. I never had the intent of hurting you. I have owned up to my mistakes and fixed them. We haven’t had an argument about anything other than the way you feel about me for four years.

At this point, W starts bringing up specific things that I did (video game addiction, going out to play golf all the time, leaving her alone with our daughter while I’m out having fun, trying to make her do everything I wanted to do, not doing things she wanted to do, etc, etc.) And I stupidly make excuses for them such as: I felt like you never wanted to do anything with me, I was young and didn’t have any relationship experience, I didn’t understand what being a father meant, etc, etc. and she tells me hearing these excuses just makes her madder. I say that I’m just trying to get you to see my POV, not make excuses. Same death spiral conversation we’ve had at least a dozen times...

W: This just proves that you don’t understand or truly believe that what you did in the past was wrong, and you don’t understand how I feel.

M: Listen, you are right. There is no excuse for the things I did. And nothing I say can change the past. I have owned my mistakes and I have done a lot of hard work to make sure they will never happen again. I am truly sorry about what I did in the past, but I didn’t want to have this conversation again. I wanted to talk about is why you are being not so nice to me lately.

W: You keep pushing me and trying to force me to feel a certain way, and that just makes me see that same selfish jerk that I hate.

M: Do you think I live my life in a selfish manner today?

W: No, I think you’ve fixed that.

M: Then how do you still see the selfish jerk?

W: Because of how badly you hurt me.

M: (not going down that rabbit hole again) What is the purpose of being mean to me?

W: I don’t know, I just want you to stop pushing for a normal M.

M: I have a very hard time with that…I feel like I should be doing all the nice things a H would normally do for a W. Especially after I thought we were on the path to fixing things last month.

W: Well, pushing for what you want is not helping, it just pisses me off and pushes me away.

M: I know. Obviously you want no physical contact from me. I know you see that as pushing. Are there any other things I do that you feel are pushing?

W: I don’t know. I’m tired. (her way of telling me she doesn’t want to talk anymore)

M: Ok. Well what if we can agree that I don’t push you for anything, and you don’t have to be “not-nice” to me.

W: That would work.

M: Cool. I would really like that.

W: Ok.

M: Well thanks for talking. I hope you know that I really am sorry about the past and I am sorry I was getting defensive and making excuses for it tonight.

W: Ok, thanks.

M: Good night.

W: Good night.

So far this morning, W has been nice to me. Cheerful when we got up and she has sent a couple texts since I have been at work. So despite opening the old wounds last night, I think the talk ended up being a good thing. I just have to make absolutely sure I hold up my end of the bargain and not do anything she might see as “pushing”. I think this was a good first step toward standing up for myself.