Cross country DB with WAS

[Anders]

I posted this in response to a question posed to me on another thread.

It gives some insight into what led me to become a WAH a few years ago and some of the things I discovered I still have to work on myself:

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Post 1: For our sit. the 'issues' began with complaints I was not doing enough to help with the housework. Within a a few months, I was pretty much doing all of it but the still got the same complaint. We even went to MC which resulted in...a detailed sheet outlining what to clean!

Then, a new complaint began. I was not cleaning things the right way...

My point is that there was a much bigger underlying issue that I sensed but could not put my finger on. It took IC and coaching for me to realize how common this pattern is in marriages. In my case, I was a pleaser, not one to take initiative in our M and deferred everything to my W.

And, in MC's opinion and my own, that the nagging about cleaning was actually her way of trying to reach out to me and signalling that we were drifting apart. And, a way of testing if I could stick up for myself and to her. The irony is her complaints confused me and causing me to withdraw, which caused her to push more, with a downward spiral.
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Post 2 in response to a request for more details:
In essence, I was very immature about relationships, in my understanding of what my wife wanted and what she was feeling.

I was so afraid of loosing her that I eventually would do anything to avoid conflict. I mistakenly thought that if I let her make the decisions, it would show her how considerate and loving I was being. I was the classic Mr. Nice Guy (A good book that explains this in detail is :"No More Mr. Nice Guy").

She only seemed to get more hostile. At the time, I was completely baffled. I didn't understand what was happening. I kept saying 'I am so confused right now. I am doing everything you are asking me to (cleaning house and running errands) but it does not seem to make a difference to you.'

The common issue she brought up was that she felt she was doing everything on her own and that she needed a real partner. The more she would 'attack me', the more I would withdraw, becoming very resentful of her.

Communication became very bad. I felt like she was not able to really articulate what was going wrong and suggested MC. We stopped after a few sessions and eventually I became a WAH with an overwhelming need to just get some space.

The deferring habit hit home again a few months ago and really woke me up as to how passive I had become in our M. After nearly a year, we had been slowly piecing and we took a walk through town. She asked me where we should go for coffee, and without thinking, I said "Wherever you want to go, doesn't matter to me."

She blew up at this and told me she just wanted me to make decisions.

It took a long time, and much later after the fact, for me to realize that I was not being emotionally available and I lacked decisiveness in our relationship. In other words, I was not being the man she needed me to be. The husband she thought I was. I was behaving like a kid. She was tired of being my mother.
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