Dealing with WAW Part 3

[25yearsmlc]

This ^^statement makes me sad. What would you be "RISKING" By complimenting your wife? (The risk to not complimenting her is a lot higher)

I mean going from non pursuing behavior to pursuing behavior.


Why do you see making a positive observation as pursuit? If she negotiated a good deal on, say, a car, and you told her she'd gone a good job with it, you think that means you are asking her to reconcile?

it doesn't. It just means you are noting a positive. This is NOT a small problem. IT's a huge disconnect in how you view interactions with her and I don't see how it is going to feel loving to her, to be around that. You are now forgetting or glossing over your role in the marriage problems b/c your focus is almost exclusively on whether she has a PA and or an EA and what you would need FROM HER for you to want to work on the M.

I guess i don't see this approach as very enticing to her. And I absolutely do not see complimenting your wife as pursuing behavior. If it's about how "Sexy" she is, THAT is flirting and that is pursuit, and might be fine anyhow, but it's a lot different than merely complimenting her.

You have a wife whose love language is WOA. You have a problem expressing positive feelings verbally (though you sure want HER to verbalize things that make her very uncomfortable or even embarrassed/ashamed. Irony much?)

I did/probably still do have a problem expressing positive feelings verbally. And it is quite possible my wife's love language is WOA.

Doesn't have to be her "only" love language, but it's clearly one of them.

Not merely "Possible" that her LL includes that, and yes, you DO have a problem expressing positive feelings. Didn't you already admit that, and that you and your family don't say "ILY" very often? But her family does.

I say these things based on your words here and how she reacted to the positives you had given her.


While I would love nothing more than to work on that, would it be prudent to express WOA if she was knee deep in the middle of an affair? Probably not. Is she knee deep in the middle of an affair? I dont know.

Geez....look at this^^. You don't know what she is doing but you want to punish her, "in case".

Since I don't think it "costs" or "risks" you a thing to be kind, & give a freaking compliment to your w, I do not think we are going to see eye to eye on these issues.

Which is why I have hesitated in our prior contact. Which is also why I am here on the forum feverishly trying to gain nuggets of wisdom, especially in the area of how do I best move forward.

I am keenly aware that even if not her primary LL, WOA would greatly help my chances at a R with her, or with anyone for that matter. Believe me I get what you are saying. Just understand that by risk, I only mean the risk of pursuing too quickly. [/quote]


I don't think an authentic compliment is pursuit, and if balanced by circumspection in you, (which I KNOW it will be b/c you are very withholding,)

I see very little risk TO YOU in this. I can her taking a risk by agreeing to piece, only to find the whole A issue to be your primary interest.

Also, you identified being selfish as something she has said, and you admitted there is some validity to it. So how are you working on that?

What are your 180s and the traits you want to work on to become the man you always wanted to become?

Specifically..


Hey Pilot, I'm going to post something here that in part, applies to your situation. Maybe all of it, maybe only a part. But the part about "winning" hit me as I wonder if your decision to finally look in the mirror to change yourself, might be b/c of the possible OM, rather than the desire to become a better man.

In other words, you did not want to change before the idea of OM came about, so maybe that's a reason your wife trusts your changes a lot less.

Anyhow, here's a letter from a WAW to a h who wants his own wife to return to him and cannot grasp why she'd even consider Om.

Take from it, what you will.

.


FROM A WAW TO A LBS HUSBAND WHO HAS CHANGED AND WONDERS WHY HIS WAW HAS NOT COME HOME YET AND HOW SHE CAN BE AT ALL INTERESTED IN OM….

"When I read your interactions with your wife, I could so easily identify with your wife's feelings/words/sentiments. I have been in her position in my M. I was the ignored, the devalued, the one who was treated as less than. -

One of the things that I have tried my hardest not to do, is not to engage with another man. Not just because of my marriage vows, but because I knew that when I truly engaged in any type of R with another man, it would make it that much harder to ever reconcile with my H.

Because being treated differently (better) than the way he treated me, would lessen him so much in my eyes.

So, I can see where your W is coming from. When you've been mistreated to the point where you actually let go of your R enough to let another person into your heart or bed or whatever, it takes a boatload of work to get back on a page where you're recommitted to being with your S - and those uncertainties that she's expressed to you, I don't know if you truly, truly fathom how deep they run.

Six months of getting back on a page where you treat her the way that any wife should be treated does not even scratch the surface of the years, the intrinsic devaluing that occurs when you're systematically mistreated for such a stretch of time.

And I promise you that while you have recommitted and worked for 6 months, your W has simply been trying to get to a point where she can even buy into the changes, where she can even think that you might have changed and not scoff at the thought.

Because when you build up hope again and again and again in your H and he crushes it again and again and again, you develop a thick skin, a protective doubt, a conditioned response to even the slightest, grainiest seed of hope.

You are taught that when you hope, you will be disappointed. When you try, you will fail. You are taught that you will never be what he wants and it is hard to shake what you have come to believe is reality.

And for the changes that you've made to have come only when she walked away and OM became competition, I can definitely see how she can doubly doubt that you truly want to be in a M with her, and not just to win.

Even you today say that you are not sure that you don't just want to "win".

Step 1 - figure that sh!t out ASAP. Because if you actually do manage to convince her that you really do want her and really have recommitted to her and you actually just want to WIN, you'll put her through hell."
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