Man, it will kill my W if she saw our son that little when we were living apart. But every wife/mom is different. I can say a lot of things about my W but the one thing she is is a wonderful mother.
My wife has tremendous guilt right now about breaking up the "family." She flat out told me that and that is a huge reason why we're living under the same roof again. She doesn't want me to only see the kids 3-4 days/week and vice versa.
Our situations are incredibly similar. My W is 6 years younger than I am. We met when she just was about to turn 21 and got pregnant 6 months later. A question, is your W enjoying the extra freedom that being apart from you and your son gives her? My W DEFINITELY enjoyed greater freedom to do and talk to whomever she wanted while we weren't living together. To quote her, "I'm starting to wonder whether or not I got married too you and I want to be able to enjoy life on my own for once."
Part of me can't blame her. I'm a family man and enjoy my family but I'd be lying if I said I didn't have a blast when I was 18-25 years old.
Also, I have been working on anger issues as well but only started IC a month ago. My wifes big hangup is that she doesn't feel "safe" around me even though I've never physically hit her (but obviously it hurt her emotionally).
Crazy how similar our timelines and situations are (other than my wife being a model mother throughout our issues).
Hey trc, glad you could stop by my thread.
My ex truly belueves(she believes a lot of things I don't necessarily agree with) that she is a great mother. That is the way she feels and nothing I say will change that. I keep my mouth shut. I have no doubt she loves him to death. She does have a lot of personal issues which are clouding her mind. I'm not mind reading this. It is clear as day. Her past upbringing plays a huge role as does her current situation. She's stressed and sad and happy and confident and self conscious etc etc. She is constantly flip flopping and it's blatantly obvious she's suffering from something. I'm just letting her be and showing her my neutral side, my compassionate side, my caring side, my going dim side. Basically I'm not giving her any reason for me to be a stress factor in her life.
My ex went out a lot the first time she left me. For 14 months it was all about how she could find happiness externally. This time around she doesn't go out as much(money is very tight for her), and she hasn't really mentioned the freedom thing to me. What I've heard from her is that "we" tried and it didnt work or we're just not compatible. I don't believe any of that.
About our ex's being afraid... I've lived that path for a long time. For 2 years I was in counseling and read books and listened to podcasts. My anger is pretty much gone. My counselor told me I wasn't abusive in the classic term but more along the lines of a guy with bad behavior. The point is, my ex felt abused. She owns the right to feel how she did. And because i love her so much i was able to see the pain i caused her without making excuses for nyself. That was a turning point for me. I didnt feel I was doing any wrong at the time, but once I saw it from her perspective, my feelings changed. Tremendous guilt and shame. My IC said I had healthy shame because I was so focused on changing my behavior and I actually empathized with my ex.
The whole abuse thing is a slippery slope. It is on a wide spectrum. Something abusive to one person is completely innocent to another.
I agree with Scorp about it being your w responsibility to tell you. Here's the thing though, what if she had a story in her mind that justified not saying anything to you? It could be that she was scared, or didnt think you'd listen, or she thought it would fix on it's own etc. point is, you and I both know its her responsibility to say something, but she had her reasons not to. We have to accept that. It's not her fault. She is the way she is based on every single second of any insignificant or important experience of her life. What I mean by that is, very very few of us(if any), go through our entire lives being consciously self aware. Most of us are on auto pilot. Hardly any of us experience free will down to the emotional level. People experience things based on reactions(not thinking) and every one of those experiences shape who we are today. Not too sure where I'm going with this. Anyway, don't put blame on your w for not speaking up. She did what she did and that's that. Every time my ex does something strange or rude or negative, I constantly remind myself that she's sick, she's not thinking with self awareness, her past shaped her, she's still on auto pilot etc. The same thing goes for all of us. Lbs's get a gift though. We learn about self awareness and self growth. We can change our current auto pilot path to something more conscious. You learned about your anger issues. Now are you consciously going to remedy that and work on it? The choice is yours. That's a gift right there. Becoming aware of something so destructive(anger) and having a choice to fix it. Some people go their whole lives thinking their negative behaviors are normal or acceptable or worse, they think they have no negative behaviors. Not sure where I was going with that either. Hope it helped though.
Maybe a little journaling time.
My ex has been strange as usual. Just last night she called me sick at around 11:30. I brought her meds and soup and 7-up. I know I'm an idiot, but I want to make sure she's ok. She immediately felt better after eating some soup. She had more hair dye so I helped dye her hair and cut it. I stayed over til about 4:30 am. I know that's crazy. I even massaged her feet the other day. Stayed over pretty late that night as well. We've talked for hours. We've also gone dim for days. She asks a lot of what I'm doing or where I'm going out. I try my best to say "going out", but she knows me too well. I ask nothing about other dude. I pretend he doesn't exist. My ex just called while typing this. Pleasant conversation, she told me about how she cried at work today because a client was being rude to her. I listened and validated. She also flip flopped again. She was supposed to go out tonight but now she's not. She said she told me earlier but I don't recall. So s3 will spend the night with her. I'm happy for the both of them. So I guess I'll have some free time tonight.
Anyway, I can sense I'm becoming more neutral to everything. I'm not neutral, just heading in that direction.
Me-35 Com law-28 S-3 T-6 yrs w/14 mnth bu 1st bu- 2/2012 Rec-4/2013 2nd bu-10/2013 IC-2 yrs(anger issues) MC- 5 mnths-fail OM~1/1/14 OM dumped 6/4/14 New OM ~10/4/14
