Flight's Thread #2

[Flight]

Does your wife have issues with emotionally connecting with you? Were you cold to her?

My wife thinks she is a princess. She is very entitled. An affair is the ultimate expression of entitlemet. She also has an unrealistic expectation of marriage. Having only had 2 men in her life (well, 3 now ), she is still believing in soul mates, true love, and fairy tales. In the beginning she was emotionally connected. She can express feelings. But she does put a wall up.

Her problem is how she communicates. She waits until it has built up and then there is rage and contempt. So to a man, it sounds like bitching. She seldom could say, "honey. I am feeling despondent now and need you to do XXX". Rather she would rant about what I wasn't doing. She also doesn't like to have to coddle someone and things they ought to know what to do because if they loved her, they would "just know". She is big on mind-reading. And when she brings one issue up, she brings EVERY issue up.

I was never cold to her, but I hurt her by not accepting her for who she was. If there was something I had a problem with, I would fight her on it and wear her down. She felt like she had to give in to "keep the peace". We were both posessed of strong tastes and opinions. I could have let her "win" more since she has said for me it is all about winning.

So many of our differences and arguments were just the stuff couples argue about. But my worse "bads" were when I not only didn't agree with her, but tried to force her to my way of thinking or showed contempt back to her, "How could anyone believe that nonsense?" I got better as I learned new skills, but the damage was done. Sex also became dirty for her near the end. She used it to control me.

I don't know if in one post I can capture fairly our dynamic. She has a lot of issues because of her upbringing, that entitled attitude, insecurities, etc. I have been hurt before in relationships and was pursuing fun. I thought we were working past some things. The biggest issues were behind us, or so I thought. But the pain for her was too great that each fight caused her to close off more. I know I could talk to much and just verbally wear her down.

We didn't have a strong emotional bond, especially from her point of view, when we got back from a trip and she went back to work and OM was there to hold her hand and say, "there, there"