Devastated Husband; Need Advice...Part 2

[TLEE86]

Pink,a lot of your points hit home for me...and I am really thankful you shared your story and your insight.

She does not talk about R/M but is daily being married to you. She wants to be independent but needs your guidance. She has to prove herself worthy but needs almost like your approval.

Somewhere along your W behavior I can see myself. I was a stay home mom and even being a strong person, I develop this habit of always seeking H advice, almost like an approval of what I was doing.

Since the beginning of our M, my W has always "sought my approval/guidance." She always looked up to me and thought I knew everything. Even today, she told me that she called me for help on something because "I would know the answer/how to solve it." At first I found it flattering, my W thinks I know the answers to everything, awesome. What she views as "H knows everything," quickly turns into "H knows best," which is not healthy. She needs to be able to make her own choices without "seeking my approval." What I have tried to do lately, is help her figure it out on her own. "The Socratic Method." Ask her questions to help her get to an answer. Sometimes, its hard, because I just want to tell her what to do, especially since she asks me to tell her what to do.

My insecurities and fear made me very dependent and I am now learn that this dependency is not good for me. One of my M problems is that I always want my H to make me happy and he couldn't keep my happiness. I was the one to be responsible for my own happiness and I did not know how.

You're right. We are all responsible for our own happiness. My W was dependent on me for it. Right now, I am trying to learn how to "find my happy."

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Not too much change in the past week, still wondering if I am doing the right things because things seem stagnant, we talk daily, but no real moving forward.

Today was a little different. W called me multiple times just to talk. We got into a small argument tonight but sort of resolved it. Basically, my W is excessively indecisive. She just decided last week to go to an internship in 2 weeks for 3 months in Maryland. She has known about this for 6 months. Now she is stressed because she is scrambling to quit her job, find time to go home to see her dad (heart attack), buy cold weather clothes, and figure out what to do with her dog.

This is where I went wrong. I broke a DB rule and tried to see my W before she left. I told her I would go pick up the dog and see her at the same time. She was wavering back and forth on this. We then got into an argument about how the dog is my dog too, and that I cant believe she would even contemplate leaving the dog with her roommate.

W replied, "You know how many times i have wanted you to treat that dog like it was one of your own, and how many arguments we got into because you didnt treat her the same? I know you've been around her a long time, but for the past year, you didnt treat her the same as your dogs. It makes me mad that NOW you refer to her as 'your dog.'"

And you know what? She's right. Since W and I started having our problems, I stopped caring about her dog as much. I honestly cant even blame her for being hesitant on giving me the dog.

We ended up getting into a small R/M talk, mostly just apologizing about how I wasn't in a good place the past year, and I am really sorry for not being a better person. I told her how much I appreciated her doing all the things she did, and taking her for granted.

She took it very well, surprisingly. She said sometimes she feels her anger is going away, and then something just triggers it.

Shortly after we got off the phone, W texts me.

W: "I'm sorry its like this =( I hate that you get me so well so it [censored] when we fight."

She then goes online and posts "It's painful hearing how you realize your mistakes, especially when I know I'm not over how bad it all hurt. I used to think of you as someone that would never, ever hurt me, ever."
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I guess my take away from this is that there is still a lot of healing to be done on both sides. She is angry still about a lot of things, though her anger seems to be going away sometimes. I still have a lot of learning to do. Sometimes I want to give up so I don't have to deal with it anymore. But thats not what I really want.

Have to be at work at 1am tonight...so...2 hours of sleep here we go!