One step closer to the edge and I'm about to break

[Accuray]

Hi FF,

I've read your sitch, you're in a tough spot right now. Here's a couple thoughts that might help:

When your W moves out, it makes you feel "out of control". You rely upon your spouse, you like to think they have your back, and over time you can take their presence for granted, not necessarily in a bad way, it becomes a place of comfort. When they leave, it's like "yanking the rug" out from under you.

Feeling out of control is very uncomfortable, and it often feels that the shortest path to regaining that control is to just get your spouse back -- but they don't want to come back right now, and when your efforts don't work, you feel even MORE out of control, then you try harder to get their attention and it turns into thrashing.

If you buy into this "control" dynamic, then one thing that can help is to find other ways to help you feel in control of your life. One way to do that is to set small measurable goals for yourself and then meet them. This can be losing weight, exercising, learning to play an instrument, learning a language, whatever -- the goal isn't as important as the ability to log your progress week to week -- that really does help.

With regard to your relationship, I don't think you've gotten down to the root of the issue. Usually in these situations the root of the problem is that your wife had some core needs that you weren't meeting. It's human and natural to expect that if you give what you like to receive, then your spouse should be satisfied, but often their needs don't align with yours, and you have to provide in ways you wouldn't anticipate unless you educate yourself. I think Labug recommended the book "The Five Love Languages", definitely read that, it may be eye-opening.

If you think about it, if you were doing a great job of meeting her needs, then nothing else would really matter -- she would derive a great deal of security from having her needs met, and she would know that you love her. In the context of unmet needs, a lot of things that otherwise might not matter suddenly become very important or become recurring complaints. You address those complaints, but it doesn't seem to help. That's because they are symptoms, not the cause, of your wife's unhappiness.

Getting the root of what she needs may not be easy -- she may not be self-aware enough to know herself. It requires study on your part and some trial and error until you figure it out.

All that is getting ahead of ourselves, however, because you can't do that now -- she's not receptive to it.

Here's where you stand from my perspective. Your W needs space -- it will feel very wrong to give that to her, everything within you will tell you to demonstrate your love, pursue her, don't let her meet someone else, etc. etc. The problem is, that NEVER works. No one ever pursues a wayward spouse back into a relationship. Instead, what happens is that you are "crowding" them, so they need to keep moving farther and farther away to maintain the space they want. Following your heart right now will just push them farther and farther away.

What you need to do is give her MORE space than she wants, because that makes it safe for her to move back toward you while maintaining her comfort zone. Think about it this way -- if she wants 8 feet of space between you and you move toward her 2 feet, she's going to feel uncomfortable, she'll fear that giving you that 2 feet will lead you to take 4 more. Therefore, she'll move another 2 feet away to preserve her 8 feet, but now she's 10 feet away from being "with" you. If she moves out two and you pursue her again, now she's 12 feet away, etc. etc. That's why pursuing is such a bad idea. Your goal right now should be not to push her any further away.

If instead of moving toward her, you move two feet in the OTHER direction, you give her 10 feet of space, now she can move 2 feet back TOWARD you, or 6 feet from your baseline, while still maintaining her 8 foot buffer, and that's the momentum you want, you want her moving toward you, not away.

You seem to be spending a lot of time worrying about the messages you're going to send her, how she's going to perceive what you say and do, etc. This is natural, but counter-productive.

Here's the thing -- she's convinced herself that you cannot meet her needs. She's convinced herself that she knows everything about you, knows what you're capable of, knows how you will react and what you will do in every situation.

What you need to do is PROVE to her that her assumptions are incorrect. You cannot prove this by making arguments, sending love notes, or any form of "look at me". You need to PROVE it by demonstrating new behaviors over and over again, consistently, and with no backsliding. You need to surprise her -- whatever she expected, you need to do something different. This requires changes in you, how you think and how you react, and you get that by educating yourself. This may involve looking differently, dressing differently, changing up your "go to" expressions, but most importantly critically evaluating your shortcomings as a spouse and addressing them methodically. That will benefit you no matter what happens with W, and that's why it's so worthwhile. The more you can make it about you and not about what you're doing FOR HER, the better and more effective it will be.

Good luck FF, you can turn this around, but it will be harder than you expect, and will take 10x as long.

Accuray