Not sure what to do

[Jacket]

All those things you described are GAL, and those are great! However, I was under the impression that the LBS is not supposed to pursue, reason, chase, beg, or plead because those are things that most LBS do, and usually they don't work. But based on what you've said about how you tend to withdraw, NOT doing those things seems to be "more of the same" behavior for you. It is clear that you your wife DOES want to talk about the relationship, and avoiding it seems to make your wife even more angry. It seems like a 180 for you would be to actually talk about it, instead of avoiding it, and for you to attempt to engage in a constructive discussion about it. Your wife seems to want to come back to the marriage, but she seems to want to discuss things about it before she's willing to come back. You refusing to talk about it seems to be what's keeping things from moving forward.

I think the reason people keep saying that you seem to be blaming her is because you have made comments that you think she has anger issues, is emotionally unstable, and that she emotionally abuses you. I get the impression you want her to work on those things, which might help, sure, but you have zero control over that. Instead, what you can control is looking at yourself, and seeing what it is exactly that YOU are doing or saying that is causing her to react this way. Since she does not react to anyone else this way, it is clear that it is something about your dynamic that is setting her off. If you read my story, you can see that it would be really easy for me to simply blame my H for wanting this "fantasy" kind of romance that it would not be possible for anyone to possibly live up to. In fact, that is what all of my family and friends focus on, and I've been encouraged over and over to kick my H to the curb. Instead, I have chosen to examine my own role in the demise of our M. Does my H want something unattainable? I think so. However, from my own exploration, I see that I withdrew from our relationship because I didn't feel loved and because I got negative reactions from him when I did something that I felt was loving. In looking deep into myself, I see that I could have reacted differently (e.g., told him how what he was doing made me feel, asking him directly what he thought of XYZ) rather than withdrawing, even though many people have assured me that I was justified in reacting the way I did. The only person I have any control over is myself. Even if my H and I do not reconcile, I will have learned valuable information about myself that I will take with me into my next relationship.

I actually identify a little with your W. While I am not the kind of person who usually yells, I would get incredibly frustrated with my H when he didn't react to things I would tell him. I would tell him about things that made me happy, excited, sad, frustrated, upset, etc. When my feelings weren't validated and when he would actually withdraw (he was brought up to completely stifle his emotions and actually felt like he was in danger if my feelings seemed too "out-of-control"), I often felt rejected if I was trying to share a happy moment or even more frustrated/upset/sad than I already was. I felt I needed to re-explain what I was feeling and more insistently; that he didn't understand what I was saying and that I needed to clarify. The more he withdrew, the stronger I felt I needed to make known what it was I was feeling and oftentimes, if I was already describing something that was upsetting or frustrating to me, my H's withdrawal made it 10x worse. I would actually forget whatever it was I was frustrated or upset about and instead focus on the fact that he couldn't emotionally support me.

Through MC my H and I both learned that my display of emotions was shutting him down, and he learned to listen to what his body was telling him and to teach himself that he wasn't being attacked when I was simply trying to get some empathy from him. He often took things I told him about incredibly personally, even if they had nothing to do with him. For example, if I was talking about something that happened at work and just needed to vent, he would often take it as a personal attack and would feel affected physically. Before we separated, we had gotten to the point where I could learn to preface what I said with, "I just need you to listen and validate me" and he learned to say, "I'm shutting down" when he could feel like he wanted to withdraw. We worked a lot on communicating better with one another and it allowed us to have much better conversations.

If you feel like you still would not be able to have a constructive conversation with your W, perhaps you could write her a letter to open up the discussion. But I would make sure you focus entirely on what you are doing to change things, and not give the impression at ALL that you are blaming her for what she has done or said.

I'm no vet. In fact, I'm really new to the boards, so I'm not pretending to be an expert at all. However, I have read your thread and I feel for you and for your wife. If I'm way off-base here with my suggestions, feel free to chime in, vets and others!