I wanted to commend you on the work you've already done, you are on the right track. I was a quite co-de before the BD and have worked very hard to throw off that mantle. That programming from childhood is insidious and difficult to change but it can be done. Time is your friend.
About the 180s, I think you have it now but I know there are other places on the web where people talk about "doing the 180" and they mean going no contact, or really decreasing interaction.
In DB it means doing something 180 degrees from what you were doing because obviously what you were doing wasn't working.
With DB you also do what works, so if being with your W draws her closer, do that.
About her request that you love her like a man or whatever it was, if she brings it up again could you have a calm discussion with her about what that means to her? Maybe say, "W, I hear you saying I haven't loved you the way you need to be loved. Can you help me understand what that is?"
Don't get angry or defensive and if she doesn't answer just leave it.
It's going to take a while for her hurt and anger to dissipate and you can't work on anything while that's present.
Good luck.
Me 57/H 58 M36 S 2.5yrs R 12/13
Let me give up the need to know why things happen as they do. I will never know and constant wondering is constant suffering. Caroline Myss
I wanted to commend you on the work you've already done, you are on the right track. I was a quite co-de before the BD and have worked very hard to throw off that mantle. That programming from childhood is insidious and difficult to change but it can be done. Time is your friend.
About the 180s, I think you have it now but I know there are other places on the web where people talk about "doing the 180" and they mean going no contact, or really decreasing interaction.
In DB it means doing something 180 degrees from what you were doing because obviously what you were doing wasn't working.
With DB you also do what works, so if being with your W draws her closer, do that.
About her request that you love her like a man or whatever it was, if she brings it up again could you have a calm discussion with her about what that means to her? Maybe say, "W, I hear you saying I haven't loved you the way you need to be loved. Can you help me understand what that is?"
Don't get angry or defensive and if she doesn't answer just leave it.
It's going to take a while for her hurt and anger to dissipate and you can't work on anything while that's present.
Good luck.
Thanks, labug. I do believe I finally have the idea of what a 180 SHOULD have meant to me for so long, just wish I had figured it out in August/September.
As far as when my W says I need to love her the way a man should, I have asked and she tells me "if you don't know, I'm not going to tell you. Maybe your mommy should have done a better job of teaching you how to love a woman.." Unfortunately, her A is going to cloud my actions on the romance front for a long time. But, I can't do anything about that--I still have only myself to blame and only myself to fix!!
See? Lots of anger and resentment from her right now, and like you say it's going to take a while for her hurt and anger to dissipate before she allows herself to open up a little. I know time is my friend, but when she tells me she has a limited time frame before she leaves, then I get a little worked up (I have stopped getting worked up in front of her, which is a good thing)!!
I'm starting to see the bigger picture though....perhaps she does leave and the best I can negotiate is a separation (I think she might be agreeable to that at least to start). I can still work on the things I need to fix, and perhaps we just can't do this together under the same roof right now. Having said that, I DON'T want her to leave, but if it helps her AND I get into the right, more peaceful state of mind, then it would be OK.
Hi AS, yes I have the 5 Love Languages book. My W and I started reading it together in December but she told me she didn't want to any more because it was too painful to see how I had stopped meeting her needs. I continued for a little while on my own, but stopped during the holidays. Need to restart...
It's actually good that she quit reading it, because if she knows it too well and you start trying to fill her tank she might see it as "tricks" rather than genuine. So the less she knows about it the better.
Quote:
I have also just realized that a 180 just means doing the opposite (or different) from what I had been doing.
Right, exactly. It's taking stock of what you did wrong in the marriage and doing the opposite of those things. We all know that it takes two to make a marriage crumble, but we have no control over our spouses and can't make them own their mistakes, so all we can do is work on our own mistakes.
Quote:
My approach of just giving her a lot of space is not working. If anything it seems to make her feel more neglected.
Michele actually warns against this in DR. She says that if the LBS was emotionally distant during the M, then going dark may be perceived by the WAS as "more of the same" behavior. So she does warn not to go dark if that's the case. But if it hasn't been working don't let that worry you, just make changes and monitor things for a few weeks. DB'ing is all about making adjustments now and then and seeing how they impact the R.
Let me share my typical afternoon/evening with my wife.
I’m coming home from work. W is usually in kitchen or front room. Me: coming thru door with smile. Attitude is upbeat. “Hi honey, how was your day?” Hug and peck on lips/cheek, whatever is offered. Her: sometimes smile, sometimes neutral. “Hey. Fine.”
Then I go to greet kids and ask them about respective days. Me: going back to W. Attempt to hug or put arm around W. Hugs are <3 seconds. My arm around her is usually shrugged off within 10 seconds because she’s “busy” or “needs to go get ____”
I go about doing some small things with kids, etc. and then return to wife. I try to ask questions about her day and sometimes she asks how my work went. We used to have 20 minute conversations just about my work (not initiated by me, but by HER) or her day, but she now just stops talking about it or anything she’s done and concentrates on cooking/cleaning/whatever else she can do.
Me: getting close to her, I ask what’s happening this evening (her schedule in the afternoon/evening is busy), and if she needs help with anything. Her mannerisms and attitude are usually enough to tell me that she isn’t interested in talking/interacting/being touched.
By this time I have had enough of her cold and distant attitude, so I go do something with the kids or in the garage or outside. There’s plenty to do. I will attempt affection and interest in her at some point later in the evening, but will get the same results. By the end of the night I am feeling worn out and left out, and I am looking for any scraps of attention she might throw my way.
My wife’s cousin (who is staying with us for a few days) cornered me last night and told me that when I leave my wife alone after attempts at affection/interaction get rebuffed, my wife views it as I’m going away to be angry and sulk because I’m not getting what I want (which is her making the first move).
These interactions with my W are trying to tell me something, but I’m feeling pretty dense right now. I guess I feel stuck because my W tells me she needs to be treated with confidence and passion, but I pull myself out of the game after a few attempts at regular pleasantries and neutral affection. If she doesn’t seem interested in what I’m bringing, then I shut down. I need to treat these rejections with the “as if” attitude, and I thought I was, but if my wife’s cousin sees me being affected by it, then for sure my W sees it that way, and it is making it worse for her. So, another short term goal that has to be met is: her rejection is met with ”as if” by me.
I’m still struggling with trying to meet her emotional needs when she is rejecting me all the time. So, instead of blaming it on her or analyzing her thought patterns right now, I need to explore what she is telling me. I am being rejected because she still sees the needy, desperate, emotional wreck that she has been seeing for the last few years. It must mean that all of my attempts at being "upbeat, happy and confident" are easily seen through. This must mean I haven't really done ANY real work on the things I need to fix within myself. Wow....
I am somewhat less of a talker but we meshed pretty well on that
How do you know that? If she told you then it might be true but it might also be another one of those areas where we thought everything was hunky-dory.
How's the 'more conversation' going?
Well, now I don't know. There are so many things going on inside my head right now about my perception of things in the past that I really can't tell you. Perhaps a more accurate way to describe our history of conversations is that she talked endlessly while I struggled to get my points in and would mostly agree with her. That worked great because she simply likes to talk. If I had been more aggressive in talking perhaps we could have had even better conversations. Grrrr....
With moderation still active, I can't remember if my last post actually talked about how things went with that last night!! If I neglected to mention it, I will make another mention of it later. Not that great is a short answer.
Well, obviously all the things I thought I had been doing to keep her from going did not work. Last night she told me that she called the property management company and asked them to give the tenant 60 days to leave the house. So she will move in there, but not until April 1st.
I guess in a way it's good because she's still here. We still sleep in the same bed, ML occasionally and she still is giving me the green light to continue working to salvage the situation. I think she is pretty dead set on leaving though, because she now wants to "prove" that she can make it on her own.
She tells me that she still senses fear in most of my interactions with her, and that my confidence has not improved at all. These are deep-seated issues, and things that I need to work hard to change. I got the DR book over the weekend, and am reading it/practicing as much as possible.
So sorry for this development, but try not to get too down over it, often broken relationships don't start to mend until after a separation. I think in our case it was what W and I both needed to gather our thoughts and do some soul-searching. You mentioned your lack of confidence, I had very little confidence going into the S but once W moved out I quickly learned I could do just fine on my own and it boosted my confidence in a big way. So you may find things get a lot better after S.
A week ago my wife came to me in tears. She told me she needs to move out, and is not sure if she will ever move back. She said she is heartbroken that she was pulled away from her country 12 years ago, and she needs to reconnect. She asked me if in 2014 I could possibly allow her to take D8 and D4 to her home country for a year so they could be enrolled in school and my wife could see if she could make it in her country again. She told me I was not welcome to go, and that they would return and go back to their lives here (probably never coming back to the house). I was so shocked at everything that she was telling me, that I agreed to think about it. A few days later I finally realized it was a mistake, and told her that no matter what happens between us, the girls need both parents near them until they are 18. Taking them away from their father for a year is not what they need, any more than taking them away from their mother!! My wife completely lost it. I thought her head was going to fall off! I held my ground (which is a first), but apologized for “changing my mind”, even though I had never given my consent, only agreed to think about it. I left for work, and when I came home, I noticed she had taken her wedding rings off and put them on the sink in our bathroom. She gave me the silent treatment for the next few days, although remaining as cordial as possible around our daughters.
Last night we finally had a huge fight, which for us is a big deal since we have had maybe two fights in our 10 year marriage—both within the last 3 months. My wife pounced on me for just rolling over and “letting her walk out the door” instead of standing up and trying to fight for our marriage. I was completely taken aback, since she has taken such a hard stance about wanting to leave me. I admit, since her standard line over the last 2 months has shifted from “it’s over, but I don’t know what to do”, to “it will never work, I need to get out on my own”, I have just given her space. Whenever she brings it up, I have kept telling her that I DO NOT want her to leave, but if she does, I will do whatever I can to support that. Anyway, she told me she wants a divorce, where before she was only thinking about separating. She has SO much pent-up anger over what has happened over the past couple of years, and I think it continues to make her angry to feel that I am just rolling over now.
After calming down for a little, she backed up on the divorce issue and told me she would agree to a legal separation. She believes it is the only way we can heal and “find” ourselves after being so strongly emotionally connected. I tend to agree, although I really don’t want her or the kids to go. I don’t know what else to do…
After all that, my wife softened a lot, and apologized for everything that has been happening. She asked me the following 3 questions, and here is what I answered—digging as deep as I could. I’ve thought about it a lot today, and I think my answers say a lot about the things I need to work on in order to fix the problems I bring to this or any future relationship.
Why didn’t you just continue to be spontaneous like you started to be six months ago? I noticed your attitude slowly changing, and I panicked instead of trying harder. I worked on the house/kids more and more instead of working on you, because I was trying to show you I could CHANGE. When you started talking about needing to detach from me emotionally, I took it to mean that you needed more space. So I gave it. It was all wrong….I did the wrong things. In reality, detaching emotionally meant that my emotional problems and depression could no longer be all-important like they used to be. You didn’t need someone to stand on the sidelines and wait for you to approve, you needed someone to come to you and show you that you were loved. I did not do that.
Why didn’t you try to focus more on making me feel loved and cherished? It took me a long time to figure out how big of a problem it was to you. I kept playing the victim for you having an affair, thinking that you would continue having the desire to work on the marriage and keep our family intact. I see now that I was just comfortable, because I still had you with me and things were still decent for the most part. I didn’t realize the amount of effort I had to put into changing how I interacted with you. I thought that if I changed my behavior in other ways (housework, kids, etc.), it would be enough to show you that I can be like I used to be, or even better. Now I understand that isn’t what you wanted…it was just a nice thing, but didn’t do anything toward making you feel wanted.
What do you think prevents you from actively changing the way you interact with me? I worry too much if my actions are going to be good enough. I only know to stay out of your way instead of pursuing you. Something is blocking me from freely expressing myself to you. I have always been afraid of making you angry or affecting your mood. I suppose it is a combination of two things: my own fear of rejection and general fear of you, and the fact that I became comfortable in the “perfect” relationship you created where I could be aloof and you would pursue. I’ve known it wasn’t the right way since you came back in August, but it has been very difficult to change it—more difficult than I ever imagined or acknowledged.
I'm not sure what phase we've entered, but my W is acting with more anger and agitation. Maybe it's because she really wants to leave but can't until the tenants have moved out of her parents' rental house...I don't know.
She is barely sleeping at night...tossing and turning, making long sighing sounds, getting up and coming back to bed. Without pressuring too much, I try to gently ask if she wants to talk about something, or tell me what is bothering her, but she keeps telling me "nothing". I make sure she knows that I am there if she needs to get something off her chest, but she never responds. That's OK, as long as she hears me say it. Some nights she rolls into my arms and I hold her for as long as she wants to stay there, but then the agitation comes again at some point and she goes back to tossing and turning.
I notice the same agitation throughout the day: she starts tapping her foot or moving her leg over and over and over AND OVER....I try the same thing about gently asking if she wants to talk about something, but she always says "no". I put my arm around her and gently stroke her hair or something comforting, and she stays a while but always leaves to do something else.
Inside I desperately want to know if my behavior is causing her so much anxiety that she is having some sort of breakdown...but that is just me trying to take on too much of a role in her feelings. I mean, I really do care about her health, and it seems she is clearly out of sorts. She is about 3 weeks into taking AD's, and feedback from her is generally positive about how it's helping her cope right now, so I doubt it is a reaction to the pills.
I still have a tendency to want to fix things. I don't like the idea that she might be driving herself crazy because she wants to leave but can't, but what can I do about it? I'm looking for a behavior to do a 180 on, but I'm not finding any, unless I need to change from quiet, empathetic and helpful to the opposite. That doesn't seem right either.
wow.. I honestly don't know what's going through her head maybe because I too am a LBS. But from a female's perspective I can say this. When a woman says "nothing" she always has something she wanna say but can't/doesn't want to but I wouldn't suggest asking her too many times because she will most likely feel smothered.
You said it yourself. You are still in "I want to fix this for her" phase. You can't fix her, only she can.
You said 180 didn't really work for her but she's definitely bothered by something and she needs to figure that out herself. I don't know if other old timers would agree with me but in the meantime why don't you tell her that you see her struggling and you don't know what it is but you want to give her as much time and space as she needs and come talk to me when she knows what it is. (I only suggest this because you said distancing didn't help at all)
One last thing. I live in US but I am from a foreign country and I don't have any of my family member here. You'd have to understand it is beyond sad and stressful for us, especially when we have troubles such as THIS. We feel so trapped and worry about our parents who worry about us overseas. In my case though my mom is one of the few people who tells me to be patient for my H even though she's so hurt that I'm hurt. After D word dropped few months ago my H said for the first time in our marriage that he understands how hard it must be for me to be here without immediate family, and I literally felt the wall I built up started collapsing. I was looking for the word for a long time. After that I didn't care how hurt I was going through this. I knew I wanted to save this marriage no matter how long it'd take. Obviously your w and I are different but who knows, maybe she's looking for a validation like that.
M37 H36 M8 T12 inc 3yr L-dist 7/12:H broke down 10/12:H dad D frm W4. BD soon after 1/13:H wants to leave 2/13:H gpa passed. Feels closer but H still leaving 3/13: S begins
