Ours is getting worse and worse or rather less and less. I am not overly motivated to try to talk to someone who is not willing/able to talk to me. So now we have exchanges instead of talking. It sukcs but seems to be beyond me at this point.
By not talking I seem to just be a spectator watching my M disintegrate aa painfully slow pace. That being said I do believe a R talk is not going to help. It has been a year since we talked about US.
There are so many things I would like to say to my W. Can ye please give me any opinions on whether I could/should say the following:
1. I have an aunt dying of cancer. I am in regular contact with my cousins. This is bringing back loads of emotions from when my dad went through this a year and a half ago. During that time I spent a good bit of, time away from my family to be with him. I do not regret that but I know it left my W with the kids a lot. I want to mention this to my wife and acknowledge that it probably wasn't easy on her.
2 one of us has a memory problem. She recently has said on several different occasions that I said X or Y or Z. Or that I never answered something I did answer. I remember saying A, B or Cand answering. I usually calmly restate what I said and let it slide. But she seems frustrated by me saying X and then saying I said A. Understandable except for me I said A both times. I often feel like saying WTF but i hold that back.None of this is serious stuff, but still.Can I say in some way that this concerns me? Know I cannot fix her and to try will surely backfire.
3. This is a more general version of 2. In general I am not happy to just sit back and observe her struggle. I am not talking about jumping in to fix her but at least acknowledge I see she is not well. Rereading this one I probably know the advice!
4. I know she is stressed about money. But instead of trying to talk to me about it she says comments about not being able to afford this or that. I am doing a lot of thinking about a medium term.solution. in the short term I am doing what I can and we are managing to get by. Ironically I would be much more efficient if I didn't have my M to worry about. Should I jump in and explain my view of this.
As part of my self improvement plan improving my communication skills is included.I have reread the boundaries & validation threads and other resources.
On a separate note, is it possible to change the name of a thread?I have thought about starting a new thread to talk mainly about my self improvement plan as I hoped by bouncing specific topics around it could help me and others.
Got to go Thanks for reading Best wishes and good weekend everyone.
R 25 years M 14 years S11 & S13 Working on it alone since Oct 2014 M in trouble a lot earlier (~2 years) Feb 2016. 1st R chat in a yr. Next R chat Aug'17 Still together
