Jefe - The Beginnings of Courting - #9

[Jefe]

Blogging:
So my wife has has called several times through-out the day, today. Some business, a little not. One of the later calls was to let me know she wanted to come by after work because she was going to get off early so she could come by and visit, the girls primarily but me too. So when she gets here its dinner time. She's asking what I'm making for the girls and then asks, "What are we going to eat?" Pleasantly surprised, but prepared, I offered some suggestions and we ended up cooking together and she insisted that we sit down at the table as a family and eat together.

We had a pleasant dinner. But I was growing concerned that this was not going very well because through-out dinner she was avoiding any eye contact with me.

After dinner I got the kids in the tub so we could talk for a second.

She started off by voicing concern about how our kids were going to turn out because of our messed up marriage. I shared some stats on the subject and threw out there: "...that nothing has happened in this marriage that we cant fix. As a matter of fact the majority of marriages that come back from the brink of divorce are often better and stronger than before." She said that she has been thinking a lot about coming back. She was unhappy in the marriage but she is completely miserable where she's at now.

She says she has absolutely noticed how respectfully I have been treating her lately and the other changes I've made are making her happy.

She said the last 3 years we have yoyo'ed back and forth. On again, off again. That if she were to come back, and she hasn't decided she will, that she's coming back for good. She never wants to leave again. So we better fix it and fix it right. She said one of the things that is holding her back is that so much has happened that there is no possible way it would or could ever be like it was. I said "Thank God, because what we had was obviously not working, look at us now." I told her that the old marriage was dead and gone and we would have to build a new one and I thought we needed to go back and base it on what we had before we got married and start over.

I think she is very hurt. I believe you both have deep wounds and I believe the wounds go back to the first time you split (before you were married).
I don’t know what caused the breakup but it must have been epic. Because she ran into the arms of another man and you let her.
I strongly urge that before you try to heal the new wounds of 2102, you go back and heal the old wounds.

I assume you are familiar with the 12 Step Program. If so, I suggest you take this approach with your marriage.

Specifically, make a searching and fearless inventory of yourself as a partner and (later) a husband over the course of your relationship (Step 4). I would like you to become honest about the exact nature of your wrongs as a partner (Step 5). Make direct amends to your wife about the injuries you caused her (Steps 8 & 9).
This should be a humbling exercise designed to show you understand where you let her down during the relationship. It is not a “discussion” about your marriage. It’s not about her and what you want her to do.
The purpose of your conversation is to try and heal her heart…which I believe is broken. And whatever happened to break her heart needs to be heard, acknowledged, and validated (whether you think it was valid or not).
You will probably have more than one conversation with her. Her behavior indicates there is a lot of pent up hurt. My hope is that after the first conversation she will feel safe enough to have a second conversation with you. The second conversation will lead to a third and so on.

Hope, she opened the door for me to start making amends for the things that happened in the very beginning of our relationship. She listened, she even started crying at one point.

I told her that "I didn't understand it then but, I see now that you were deeply in love with me and I completely broke your heart with my drinking and selfishness"
She quietly replied, "Pretty much."
I continued, "I didn't see it because I didn't even like myself so it was hard for me to understand or see how anyone else would love me."
She said those days were so important to her. She said "I just couldn't wait every single day to be with you, see you, start a life with you." "Then we broke up...and it broke us."
I told her that I was so in love with her then, and that I still was now. That's when she started to cry.

She said she was blown away by how much work on myself I was doing and how I was recognizing what I did wrong.

So much more happened, but this is the jist of it. She said just give her time.