With All My Hopes and Dreams

[soldier]

Well my trip to North Carolina was very nice. I saw one of my old war buddies and we got to see good old Fort Bragg again for the first time in over a decade. I left feeling really good and the change of scene was wonderful.

I got back into town around 3 in the afternoon on Mother’s Day and I had bought a small stuffed bear for W and D5 while on post. Friday night me and W had talked about if I came into town early enough I might be able to stop by for Mother’s Day and she sounded fairly excited about it. Once in town I park close by to where W was staying and gave her a quick call. It went straight to voice mail and I left a brief message. I waited in the parking lot for 15 minutes and decided to drive over real quick to drop off the gifts.

My wife was not pleased with this at all. I had obviously misinterpreted her communication last Friday and without telling everything I walked away with some answer that I really needed. We did take the opportunity to talk and she explained to me that she does not trust me and although she cares about me as a father and friend she is not sure if she still cares about me as a husband. She said she was afraid of me on all fronts mentally, physically and emotionally and that it was this fear that causes her to send out the mixed messages as she is too afraid to tell me no outright so she leads me on to accommodate me. She also let me know that she does not trust the changes that she has seen in my at all and thinks that I am simply so controlling that I am using this change as a tactic to get another chance to hurt her.

So what does this mean from my point of view? Well I have foolishly allowed myself to build expectation with my spouse because of her communications that where made primarily out of fear. I have moved to fast for her and have pushed too much change in her direction. Even though I did not ask her to notice change, I changed so fast that to her it feels fake. I need to give her total and complete space now and not read anything into her communications moving forward. I am kind of back at step 1 but on a positive I have better footing this time around. I have went back and re-read my old posts and saw that I was starting to get somewhere but lost my patience. I am going to take this as a new beginning and be more patient this time. I have outlined a 4 month plan moving forward and will stick with it at all costs. I will stay consistent in my change as the change is really helping me personally and I want this change badly.

I am tired of messing this up so much over and over again and maybe Mother’s Day was the last eye opener I need to stop messing things up.