Hi, I'm new to this forum and I believe that I need all the help I can get. My wife recently started becoming very distant, and over Christmas went by herself to visit her brother in a different country than where I live. I took this as betrayal to our home and child, because she left on the 26th of December and came back on the 3rd of January, leaving me and our child alone to spend the New Year's. What I hadn't realized was that she was trying to distance herself from me, and think about how to ask me for a divorce. After she came back I confronted her, and she said that she wanted to leave and take the child with her. I asked her, pleaded her, to give us a second chance, but after a couple of weeks she decided that she did not want to have any physical relationship with me, and in fact she wanted to stay by herself and with our child. I thought that I should leave the house, but after I regained my composure, I told her that since she wanted to break the marriage, she should be the one to move out, and without the child. She finally said no, and she decided that she needed time by herself, to think things through. She said that she would take the time in our house, but with us having no contact whatsoever.
We have been married for 10 years, and had been dating for 10 more, living together for the past 15 years. And this is where we are now, one week into this period of "living together but separately". She sleeps with the child, and I sleep in our bedroom by myself.
After reading a lot on here, I realized that pleading, begging, and telling her I love her is not going to help much. But I am in extreme psychological pain. I cannot think about anything else other than this situation and how we arrived here. I need to know that it is possible to win her back, because I love her dearly and do not want to see my family become a broken home. I am willing to set things straight and do whatever it takes to win her back.
She is now closed to the world, though. She says that one too many times she has made decisions based on what other people told her, and she now wants to take the time to make up her own mind by herself. And while I understand that, I am so scared that she will come back and say that she finally decided to get a divorce. As I said, she is my whole world, and I was entirely and completely unaware that I was causing her so much pain. She says she was screaming to me, begging me to take action, but I was so unaware and in my own little world, that I never heard any of it... Until now, where I think it may be too late.
Hi Blinded, so sorry you find yourself here. There are lots of great people here who can empathize, so keep posting and reading!
Have you read DR yet? If not, make that your first priority. Go out and get a copy of it today.
What are the things your W complained about? Are they true? Have you started to look at yourself, the person you are, how you have changed during the M, if there are things you want to change about yourself?
Are you in IC yet? That can be so helpful, and even necessary for many LBSs.
Is it possible to get your W back? Maybe. Nobody really knows . . . even she probably doesn't know right now. (Though I am guessing she thinks the answer is no.)
I know how intensely awful this feels. I want to tell you that I am almost 5 months since BD, and while I still think about my sitch the vast majority of the time, I do feel a lot better than I did in those first desperate weeks.
What helped me a lot at the beginning was realizing that nobody was coming to save me. I had to save myself. What you do has to be about YOU now. You must GAL! Force yourself to exercise, participate in the things you always have, and find new hobbies, new activities, new friends. I don't mean go out and party and get drunk. I mean, find a life for yourself that will someday fulfill you.
Whatever happens with your W, you WILL make it through this. Know that.
me: 44 XH: 42 M 11 years D10 and S8 Bomb drop 9/27/13 D final 7/1/14
Dear melissag, thank you very much for your letting me know I'm not alone. It does feel that no one is coming for me. And I know that. I'm trying to detach, but it is HARD! God, I see her and I want to reach out and hold her, but I know that this is exactly what I should not do. She asked for space, and I try to give it to her. But before that, she wanted me to leave. I said that if she has the problem then she should be the one to leave, but she decided that she would take the time in our house instead of leaving.
So now I am trying to win her back by trying to change myself into the man I was, the man she fell in love with, the man I know I can be. We'll see how it goes.
Another incident this morning. W was looking for a blouse, and could not find it. I've never seen her so furious. She was ready to kill our cleaning lady (she comes 3 times per week to clean the house etc.) She called her twice and hang up just to show that she was furious. She even tried to take it out on me, asking me if I had put away her stuff. When I tried to search with her, she said "Stop going through my stuff", and so I left, and went to our D. She was ready to cry because she had heard her mom saying that she would fire our cleaning lady. I consoled my D and made her feel better. The W left to go to work, and I am left contemplating whether this is part of a MLC that I'm in, or if it's a true ILYBNILWY sitch.
___________________ me: 38, W:38 D 7 M 10 years T 20 years Bomb drop 2/10
I am feeling that pit in my stomach again. When she comes home and she turns to her cell I feel like I'm being stabbed with a thousand knives. Are there any people here who have any experience in how to deal with the "we live together but we are separated" situation?
BTW I'm trying to get the Divorce Busting book, but amazon.com and amazon.co.uk both are playing games with me...
BTW, Thank you very much for the kind words melissag. I'll see a IC on Friday, hopefully it will help. But I can't stand this waiting game. It is more than I can bear sometimes I think...
Sorry you are here blinded. DB won't guarantee that your marriage will be saved, but it will save you. get the book as soon as possible.
Originally Posted By: blinded
My wife recently started becoming very distant, and over Christmas went by herself to visit her brother in a different country than where I live. I took this as betrayal to our home and child, because she left on the 26th of December and came back on the 3rd of January, leaving me and our child alone to spend the New Year's.
This perplexes me. I don't mean this as an attack so please don't take it that way...but this sounds either controlling or smothering. Why do you feel it was a betrayal for her to visit family and not be with you?
Keep posting your thoughts and you will eventually be off moderation. Don't fight with her. Come here and do your complaining, or questioning, or crying, etc.. You would be amazed how much better we feel to do it here and not do it to our spouse and possibly make things worse.
My wife recently started becoming very distant, and over Christmas went by herself to visit her brother in a different country than where I live. I took this as betrayal to our home and child,
Why in the world would you view your W going to visit family as "betrayal"? Is it your opinion that she is not "allowed" any time for herself? That's a HUGE problem. In healthy marriages both spouses have their independent lives as well as their married life together. Are you denying your wife her independence?
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because she left on the 26th of December and came back on the 3rd of January, leaving me and our child alone to spend the New Year's.
You make it sound like spending a week alone with your child is a prison sentence. Do you feel the child is totally your wife's responsibility?
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After she came back I confronted her
Confronted her about what? Taking a week off to visit family?
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I am willing to set things straight and do whatever it takes to win her back.
Have you read DR? That's step 1. Also read Sandi2's 37 Rules daily, and live those rules.
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and I was entirely and completely unaware that I was causing her so much pain.
Please describe what you did in the M that caused her pain.
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I need help. What can I do?
Read DR and other R books. Determine what you did wrong in the M. Do 180's on those things. Give your W time and space. Change, and be consistent with your changes. Show her the spouse (and father) only a fool would leave.
Thanks for replying Brian and AnotherStander. When I read your question about why I felt I was betrayed, I tried to understand why I felt that. The reason, I think, is because there were several things that happened over the course of 2013 that made me feel that she wanted to have fun away from us. Then, the way that she framed the whole thing, wanting to go by herself without us, even when I asked her if she wanted for all of us to go together, made me feel that she did not want us to be with her anymore. That's what triggered my confrontation after she came back. It was "Do you still want us to be a family, or do you want to leave and be on your own?"
She said that she was contemplating divorce but she was unsure of what she wanted to do. I wanted to discuss it, but she said that it wasn't me it was her, and that she didn't want to break the family, rather she wanted to stay together and work things out. 3 weeks later she dropped the bomb.
Why in the world would you view your W going to visit family as "betrayal"? Is it your opinion that she is not "allowed" any time for herself? That's a HUGE problem. In healthy marriages both spouses have their independent lives as well as their married life together. Are you denying your wife her independence?
Definitely not! I want her to have her independence, and I respect that. As I said in my previous post, I felt that we were intruders in her own little world (my D and I)... That's why I felt she had betrayed us. Also, the fact that we are both educators and we have about 15 days over Christmas and New Year's as holidays (we can't really take time off from work other than school breaks), and so I felt that it was the time to spend together as a family. I felt like she did not want that - which was partly true.
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You make it sound like spending a week alone with your child is a prison sentence. Do you feel the child is totally your wife's responsibility?
Definitely not! I love spending time with my D. I love her and she is the most important person in my world. Second is my W (or I thought I showed that...) In fact, I love taking care of my D!
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Confronted her about what? Taking a week off to visit family?
I confronted her on the fact that she was getting more and more distant, and I thought that she was having an EA or PA, but she said that she did not, and that's when I got the first bomb: "I'm not sexually attracted to you at all anymore". This escalated over the next three weeks to the situation we have now.
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Have you read DR? That's step 1. Also read Sandi2's 37 Rules daily, and live those rules.
I've ordered DB and waiting for it to come eagerly. I also read Sandi2's 37 Rules every day. However I do have one question. One of W's gripes was that I was not around too much (I worked a lot on my computer in my home office), so I did not spend enough time in the family room with her and our D. Is it correct to assume that I should try to spend more time there now? I feel that making myself scarce would be a self-fulfilling prophecy of: "I knew that he wouldn't want to spend time with us..."
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Please describe what you did in the M that caused her pain.
Mainly I understand now that I was very passive-aggressive. If I didn't want to do something, I wouldn't say it, but I would be grumpy while doing it, to show my discontent. Juvenile behavior if you ask me now, and I totally understand it. How do I do a 180 on that though, if she won't ask about doing stuff?
Also, I haven't supported her many times while we (me and her) had fights with my family regarding various matters. I basically refused to take position, and she felt that I wasn't supportive of her. Finally, I was condescending about her work and people who go into elementary school teaching. I used to say that "those" people have too much free time and a lot of vacation time. I am an educator but in the higher education sector.
Ask me now about how I should have behaved, and I would say I was a stupid crud. But at the time I did not realize I was hurting her. Rather, I thought that I was playing "devil's advocate" when we discussed those things, or I thought that I shouldn't take sides between my W and my parents - stupid...
I want to do 180s on all of these things, but I feel that the opportunity is now gone. At least she will still talk to me in the house about various things, while she is taking time off the R, and while I try to make her feel erotic feelings about me once again...
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Read DR and other R books. Determine what you did wrong in the M. Do 180's on those things. Give your W time and space. Change, and be consistent with your changes. Show her the spouse (and father) only a fool would leave.
I want to do that with all my heart... And this is what I would like to find out how to do... What is the spouse that only a fool would leave? Because she told me that as a father she thinks that I am a great father to our daughter.
Thanks again for your support guys, it really is extremely important for me.
