Next Step, Moving On

[GH31]

Nail,
I hate to say this, or maybe it will help, but I sympathize with your W - a lot. What she's saying to you felt familiar to me.

This letter is a big, ominous looking wall of text but..... if you can read what's in it and translate it into manspeak, the following words and themes come up time and time again:

Neglect

Emotional Abandonment (something it takes we men some serious effort to understand)

Feelings of being marginalised

Feelings of being taken for granted, of being incidental rather than central to your shared existence.

Criticism

Harsh verbal treatment - possibly feeling like an outlet for your own anger.

Neglect

Neglect

Neglect

I have to disagree w/Bond.

I'm afraid I likewise must disagree with Mr. Bond.

don't think it's MLC talk.

Me neither.

This is a woman in extreme emotional anguish who's trying to tell you why you find yourself in this situation.

I think that she really felt alienated from you, as much as she didn't want to feel that way.

No one wants to feel that way, but I think she very probably did.

She said you criticized and punished her and neglected her. Did you? Was this your insecurities talking? Did you really not appreciate her as much as she says? These are deep, deep, deep hurts, my friend. She is saying she gave you her body, but what she's not saying is that she felt used, she felt taken advantage of, she felt like you did not cherish her. You did not cherish her.

I committed all of these marital crimes myself. I took my W for granted, was harsh, verbally abusive, treated her with contempt, completely neglected her. And so she took off with an OM and left.

Neglect and emotional abandonment is the worst of all marital crimes from the perspective of a woman. It offends them in ways which are difficult to fathom. But as RegretfulLA said, they are very deep hurts.

Your W does not want to be with anyone weak. She is sick of it, she is over it, and what she WANTS is someone STRONG, someone who can take care of her, someone who is going to be her HERO, someone who is going to put her needs first, to put his arm around her, kiss her and tell her thank you for everything you do honey.

Read this again.

The idea that what women want is some kind of "mystery" is utter rubbish. This is what they want in their man.

Please read as much as you can on the subject of neglect and emotional abandonment. Do whatever you have to do in terms of addressing your thoughts, notions, beliefs, world view and character so that these marital crimes are never repeated, either with your W or any other woman you're with in the future.

In the meantime read DR and follow it to the letter. Give your W all the breathing space she needs and say nothing about your R. If she brings it up tell her you regret all of your mistakes deeply and take full responsibility for them, and for how thru made her feel.

Hang in there Nail. Batten down the psychological hatches and commit to the long haul.

[dorightman]

Thank you guys, I understand what all of you are saying. What should I do now? Just follow DB, LRT? Have you heard of EFT Couples Therapy? Should we go back to Couples Therapy?

[mamabird]

Neglect and emotional abandonment is the worst of all marital crimes from the perspective of a woman. It offends them in ways which are difficult to fathom. But as RegretfulLA said, they are very deep hurts.

Bingo.

My H doesn't understand this and continues the cycle of neglect and abandonment by telling me that this^^^ isn't significant and doesn't compare to "what I did to him". (2 EAs). Well, it IS significant. If you want to get anywhere with your W, you need to START by acknowledging this. Until you acknowledge how much you've hurt her, you're not going to get anywhere.

Regarding MC, will she go? I have done a lot of research on EFT, and I think it works best when both parties are invested in making the M work. H and I did therapy for a while; we each found a MC we liked. His was very passive and didn't interact with us much; mine was a couples specialist who had lots of experience with infidelity but because she "challenged" him, he said he didn't like the way she treated him. So where do you think we ended up? With his crappy therapist, and finally I said I wasn't going anymore. I could fight with him at home without paying $175 an hour.

You need someone who will challenge you both and who is a "marriage saver", not a "marriage ender," and do ensure that you both like the person. Do not railroad her into going to someone that she doesn't feel comfortable with.

[GH31]

Thank you guys, I understand what all of you are saying. What should I do now? Just follow DB, LRT? Have you heard of EFT Couples Therapy? Should we go back to Couples Therapy?

Have you moved out?

Have you read DR?

If you aren't living together I would be going straight to LRT. That's what the book says.

[JuneReN]

Couples Therapy is for couples, Nail, and this is not you at the moment.

See the doctor, ask about ADs. I have a theory, and it is only a theory mind you, that creative people are most prone to depression, more so than others.. I know I write best when depressed and it seems as though you are a musician, another creative being. That which allows us to create and "see" often has a price.

We, as women, do want heroes. Not all the time, but it is nice not to have to be the strong one, every once in a while. The lack of emotional intimacy on H's part (and mine) has led to this state in marriage, so whatever person your wife protrays, there is another one hidden inside (her letter is proof of this).

You need to GAL and begin DBing, because you really haven't started yet. Start yourself with less contact with W since you cannot seem to control emotions yet.

Good Luck Nail

[dorightman]

Thank you so much all of you! As depressing as this all sounds, it does give me a bit of hope. I moved out of the house a month ago. W is willing to go to MC, but I think she has a goal of D and wants MC to get me onboard. My goal is reconciliation. She talks to me in a friendly manner on the phone, but not about R.
I think my biggest question through all of this is when a woman turns off the love switch, is there anyway to turn it back on, or is it always too late? I'am willing to do anything to save my marriage, but so far it seems like nothing I do or say moves her.

[MrBond]

There is no secret formula. You have to understand where she's coming from and then start backing off and living your own life.

Nothing you say or do will move her. YOU have to move.

[AnotherStander]

I think my biggest question through all of this is when a woman turns off the love switch, is there anyway to turn it back on, or is it always too late?

You can't turn it back on, but she can. And yes, it does happen. Most if not all the success stories on these forums were at one time in the spot where one of the spouses no longer "loved" the other.

I'am willing to do anything to save my marriage, but so far it seems like nothing I do or say moves her.

You've got to detach. And I don't mean act like you've detached, you well and truly have to detach. I think that early on I thought I had detached, but looking back I can see I was faking detachment while expectantly monitoring W for a response. It didn't work. I finally did fully detach and in fact moved on, it was at that point that I started seeing some significant baby steps from W (most recently she has decided she wants us to go to RetroV and SHE initiated the registration process). You'll hear a lot of the old timers here say she's got to feel like she may lose you before she'll really understand what she's doing. I think that was the case in my sitch, it wasn't until W was on the verge of losing me that she suddenly started showing interest again. But again, you can't pretend these things. You've got to work on yourself, GAL, and with it will come detachment eventually to the point that you realize you will be fine with or without your W.

[mamabird]

Detachment is brutally tough. I had a lot of trouble detaching until I finally actually felt detached enough to detach, if that makes sense. And I'm still not completely detached, even though I've reached the point where I've taken off my wedding ring and I am hoping my H moves out. It is called last resort technique for a reason. You can't fake it, and you won't be ready to do it until you've exhausted all your other options. You kind of have to start to actually move on. You are probably not there yet.

[dorightman]

Hi Regretful, first I want to thank you for your honest opinion. Here's my response to your post:

She said you criticized and punished her and neglected her. Did you? Was this your insecurities talking? Did you really not appreciate her as much as she says? These are deep, deep, deep hurts, my friend. She is saying she gave you her body, but what she's not saying is that she felt used, she felt taken advantage of, she felt like you did not cherish her. You did not cherish her

[color:#000000][/color]During the 3 years of financial stress, and I do mean STRESS. 36 months of not being able to pay the bills...I asked her to make concessions like take the kids out of preschool a few days a week, cut down the cable,phone bills a little etc etc. Her response was no way. She didn't act like a partner, she acted like a tyrant. Not only that, but she went shopping and added to the monthly debt. This went on for 36 months, we blew the small emergency savings I had and we had to take a second loan on the house. As time went on, I could see that we would be out of money in several months and I was worried that the bank would take our house. I got ulcers I was so stressed. Again, she did not budge. My response to her was to feel resentful, I lost respect, I felt that she was endangering the family, and I couldn't deal. I hermited, I got depressed, I shut down from her, I wasn't in the mood for love.
My dad was dying at this time aswell, so I was overwhelmed.
I didn't feel loved by her, I felt like a bank to her, a bank with not enough money!
I know this is not an excuse for not loving her, but it is how I really felt.
I've worked my a$$ off for the past 16 years to give her a beautiful life. I've tried to give her everything to make her happy. I've made a lot of sacrifices for her, and I did it because I love her. I think my mistake in all of this is I didn't have any boundaries and eventually I felt taken for granted, the same as her.

She's stuck in resentment and anger from the past. If she would stop focusing on the negative and start focusing on the positive, if she would have compassion, empathy, forgiveness. If she would think in terms of solutions rather than running and fear.......
I take responsibility for how I treated her, but she doesn't take responsibility for her part in this.
I also think that she is projecting her mother's lack of love for her father onto me. She's playing out her families disfunction on me, and her mother never divorced her father, she stayed in a loveless marriage and maybe is encouraging my W to divorce me because of that.
The fact is I love my W. We went through a long patch of darkness and came out in crises. Were ok financially now, but if we get D, it's gonna be tough again.
I understand how she feels and why. What I don't understand is how she holds onto the negative and doesn't want to save the M and family. She thinks the grass is greener...
I have showed her for the past 12 months that I want to do anything/everything possible to save the M. I did have a few emotional breakdowns, but I think that they were a normal response to the way she's been treating me( No love, detachment, like Im her advisory, threatening D, forcing separation.)
I'm sorry, but I don't see myself as the problem here. I feel muted, abandoned, forced into a corner, helpless like I can't even save my kids from this bs., All I want is love, all I want is to make amends, work through the R problems, figure out what went wrong, why, how, fix it and get on with it.
All she wants is space, time, separation, D, no love, no communication except in therapy, money...