I'm very new here. I have been reading threads like crazy and admire so much of the work people do on themselves and their marriages. I am lost though. I am lost and so severely desperate that I'm drowning. I've read DB and DR as well as The Sex Starved Marriage. I have spoken to Laurie, my DB couch, who is amazing and thoroughly helpful. But here I am lost. Desperate. Scared.
My husband of 12 years wants to leave. He has 10,000 reasons to leave and I understand every single one of them. I have not been a good wife at all. A year ago I made promises to make changes that I never followed through with completely and now he's done. Completely DONE. He has lost all hope. We've talked about changes I've made and intend to make but he doesn't trust me or trust my motivation. He sees divorce as the only answer to him regaining his self respect. I don't want to be the person who made him lose his self respect. I don't want to be the woman who made him hate himself. He says he feels dead inside, that this past year was the end for him and he has no more to give. He can't even wait around to witness the changes I've said I've made because he doesn't have it in him to wait. I understand all of this. I know how horrible I've been and I'm working on significant, meaningful, powerful and permanent changes. I want to like myself, too. He deserves a loving, non-emasculating wife. I want to be that for him. I love him and he says he loves me but I've broken him and wounded him so badly that my promises of change are only that to him - promises. A divorce provides happiness right away, he says, whereas staying even though I'm making changes means he still has to wait around to see the changes and he doesn't have that in him. He says he has to trust his instincts and his instincts say he needs to do what's best for him which is not being in our marriage.
I'm devastated. I've done this. I've caused this. I've brought this pain on myself and I've caused him so much daily pain an apology would never help heal the wounds. I don't say that to gain pity or sympathy, I say it because I need to come to terms with the truth.
He's still living in the house but in a different room. He says it kills him to be here because he's so unhappy. He's mentally checked out completely. We have one 6 (almost 7) year old daughter with SEVERE behavior problems that we can never seem to get under complete control despite massive efforts to the contrary. He seems to think that she'll be "fine" eventually; that he's not worried about her at all. I am petrified for her and will be the primary person dealing with the blowback of whatever this potential divorce could do to her. She has enough to contend with already.
DB talks about backing off, not chasing, pleading, GAL, etc. I tried all that for three weeks and he told me it seemed like I didn't care, was indifferent to everything going on. So, I did a 180. He's a man who needs reassurance (who doesn't, really?) so we started to talk more about us, what I want, what he wants - I find myself trying to convince him to stay. That my perspective and awareness are different - permanently and that he can expect bigger and better things. That I can't guarantee his happiness but that I can guarantee there will be reasons to be happy together in a strong, loving marriage. We've talked multiple times about it and he seems hellbent on leaving. I want us to be a family. I want to be his support and his strength. I want to give him hope. I want to be his home and for him to be my home. I KNOW I can do all these things but he doesn't believe me. I can't force him to believe me but if I have the hope that he does not, how can this work? I can make changes until I'm blue in the face but he doesn't care. I've wounded him that badly. What have I done?
My appointment with Laurie was last Tuesday and we came up with somethings I can do (to shut up and stop criticizing, to stop emasculating, to stop taking over when he parents our daughter, etc) and to look for small signs that he's softening (laughing with me more, maybe talking about the future). It turns out him laughing with me more was just reassuring him that we'd be great divorced because we'd be good friends, and the future he was talking about never included me but him as a divorced bachelor having fun with his daughter on his custody days. Backfire.
Where do I go from here? I feel pressed for time and impatient because once he leaves, that's it. We'll have to tell our daughter and while it breaks every child's heart to hear of their parents getting a divorce my daughter has many issues and this will destroy her. DESTROY her. Her heart will crash into a thousand pieces and I'm not sure I can handle that.
I'm lost and Im desperate and I could use some help and encouragement. I'm trying to follow the rules in DB and DR but my husband is throwing me for a loop. He needs to see my changes and my commitment to further change himself but how? How? How?
How do I instill hope in someone else when I have so much of it? I know that shouldn't even be my goal but it is. Because I was so detached in our marriage before I feel like detaching isn't the answer. How do I do this?
I apologize for the lack of reasonable order in my post. I'm trying to type this while managing my daughter have an epic meltdown. One of many more to come I'm sure.
