I am mere embryo myself in moving myself through Codependency. If you read my posts in the beginning of my journey on this forum, you will see the desperation for connection, the need to please, the lack of independency and I think therapists call it individuation. My lovely friend Zues made a few but powerful comments that made me really consider what my co-dependency looked like within a relationship. How I view his comments now, was that I became a shadow, not really a partner, because all I reflected to my ex was himself. It wasn't a partnership.
A loving partnership is an exchange between two people, where at times there is an equal participation, but at other times, it provides challenge and stimulation. A exchange of need and assistance, love and support. It can't work if the traffic is only one way.
Mr Ex (my name for my ex partner), our relationship was in a vacuum. I was so obliging and submissive, I was so accommodating, anticipating his every need. He lost respect for me and I was no longer the interesting, passionate and exciting woman he had initially fallen in love with. Note I was accommodating and nice, until I realised that I wasn't getting my needs met. And then I was passive aggressive and resentful while still being nice. I was a fool to think that because I was covering it up with niceness that Mr Ex didn't see it and feel it. There is likely a gender difference in how co-dependency manifests. So what it looked like for me, may not be how it presents in your relationship.
I am no expert in this area, my journey with co-dependency is a small act every day when I feel and see signs of it popping up. And it pops up with others I am not in an intimate relationship with, so there is plenty of people to practice on.
People have posted here that they view wife's behaviour as respectful (I affirm this too) , but there is something in wife's treatment. How and why did she become so disrespectful and disconnected from you? There is something in this I feel.
My feeling is, she doesn't know who your are. I wonder if wife trusts you? Generally codependency teaches our partners not to trust us, because what we do and what we say are often two different things. Who is the Mutatio your wife wants to respect, use to respect, the man she fell in love with. Co-dependency/Addiction makes us a shell or shadow of our most authentic self. Who is Mutatio in his authentic self? Does your wife know an authentic Mutatio?
I sense that your wife is responding to Mutatio she perceives/believes you are. The man who tolerates and is impacted by her disrespectful behaviour. The man who has likely curtailed or made himself small, because he was so scared of losing his wife, so busy proving he was worthy of his wife's presence and love.
When I see you post of other people's threads, I get such a sense of your masculinity, strength, wisdom, intellect and kindness. A man whose boundaries would be respected, a man that does not pander.
I feel that there is a need in you to fully stand in your masculinity when you're in wife's presence. It isn't a matter of stating it, it is matter of you fully experiencing your own male greatness while in her presence. Let her feel your sense of certainty about yourself. When women feel this, we know it and it is extremely powerful.
I hope it is ok to ask some questions. Feel free to ignore it. But I do wonder what your wife said about her feelings about wanting the divorce. Why does she want it? What is unfulfilled for her? Is it her? It is you? Is it both? Is there something else she wants to pursue. You may have said all of this, but I don't recall reading it.
Mutatio, feel free to ignore all of the above, they are mere reflections.
PS: I don't think Plan B is Plan B. My feeling is this is your souls work.
