Here again after 9 years and struggling 3

[inpain]

Inpain, if you want to save your marriage you'd better step it up. I get that you're in pain and I'm sorry. It's now up to you. Do you want this forum to be a support forum while you mourn the loss of your marriage? Or do you want it to be a support forum to help you save your marriage?

Hi Zues, thanks for your post. I DO want to save my marriage but I don't know how. I don't know what I'm supposed to be doing. I don't get it. I want the support of this forum to save my marriage but I feel like a lot of the advice is about how to move on and not be upset anymore. I feel like things to save my marriage are too vague. Maybe I'm just not understanding the advice, I don't know. I have re read my posts from the beginning, I do it quite often, I just don't see any patterns that you speak of.

I don't understand why it was strange of me to refer back to H's comment about going to a solicitor once bills were paid off. He has asked me on several occasions how much we owe and how long I think it will be until they're paid off. So I told him when they were.

But if you can keep your emotions under control and express them in safe ways, there is a place to be your entire self while still allowing H to be himself without feeling threatened.

OK, I get this, but how, from a man's point of view, do I express my emotions in safe ways to him?

Don't start R talks. You basically asked him to please file a divorce. "H, I want this to be over, the bills you said were in the way have been taken care of, I need the D for legal protection, please file." You are literally pressuring him to file divorce.

I did, you're right, but not because I want legal protection. I will be far worse off in every way once we're divorced, I gain no legal protection from it. I just thought it would get him out of his 'fog', as I said at the end of my post, the reality of losing something.

Validate How can your H possibly feel like you've ever heard what he says when you start in with this? Let me remind you, he left because he felt he spent years of his life trying to find a way to live with you, and went through so much pain he felt destroyed, and that he had to leave for self preservation. He tried to communicate that to you, and your response is 'why can't we work this out'? He TRIED to work it out. He has done everything he could think to do. In a last ditch effort he told you that, thinking maybe, just maybe there was something more YOU could do to bridge the gap. And you dismiss what he's told you and put it back on him to man up and make it work. Not happening.

Then what should I be saying? How do I validate? All he says is he tried for years. When he says that I say I know you did and I'm sorry. What more can I say? This is what I don't understand and feel is vague. How am I supposed to make it easy for him to come home as you say?

IP, this is a 2x4 because I haven't seen you get on a DB road. I haven't seen detachment. I haven't heard about GAL. I see no goals set. You haven't talked about 180s and I have seen no changes of any type as a result. You're not validating what he's telling you. And you're breaking most of the 37 rules.

I don't understand how I can detach when he is round here almost every day acting perfectly fine with me. Am I supposed to ignore him and go out? One of his complaints was I didn't pay attention so now I am - isn't that a 180? I did try to set some goals in one of my posts and asked for opinions if I was on the right lines with them. I didn't get a response to them and so I've just let that drop because I don't know if they're right or not.

Again, I don't know how I'm supposed to validate what he tells me? He doesn't talk about any of it for me to validate anything. I just don't understand any of this stuff.

I thought I was doing pretty good with the 37 rules. I never contact him. I make sure I look nice all the time and am keeping on top of the house. Apart from this bills conversation this weekend I don't see what 37 rules I've broken. I haven't said a word to him about any of this for a long time. He just comes and goes as and when it suits him, without challenge and I act happy when he comes. What more should I be doing? I really don't understand which is probably why you say I'm destroying my M.

Meanwhile I can tell your H loves you, he hasn't filed, he continues to spend time with you and with the family. And YOU are a good person, loving, committed, loyal, passionate, and a great mom. You ask H why he doesn't want to work on the marriage...Inpain, why don't YOU want to work on the marriage? The only catch is you don't get to work on it your way, in which you bury your problems, act out your emotions, and wait for H to make it all better...you'd have to work on the marriage the DB way in which you transcend your emotions, challenge yourself, and hold yourself accountable for bridging the gap between you and WAH.

I DO want to work on the M. What's left of it. This isn't really a M right now is it? I don't want to bury my problems, I want H to come home so that we can work them out. I don't understand why that's wrong. I don't know how hold myself accountable and bridge the gap between us. What do you mean? I've said I've been wrong, I've said sorry, I've stopped 'going on' at him, I've acted happy. I really don't understand what you think I'm doing wrong, or not doing that I should be doing. Please explain.