New and going through a Hybrid Seperation

[cbtdad]

Hey Smithy
I appreciate you stopping by my thread. I've caught myself up on your situation and would like to offer a little insight
I see you've admitted to your faults. This seems like it has been a wake up call for you. You have admitted to verbally abusing and controlling your W.
I am all too familiar with this now. I think what you recognize are the overt symptoms of verbal abuse, but what ends to shut down a W is the covert symptoms. The controlling, defining, etc.
There is a book that you need to get right away to see it from your wifes point of view and it will help you tremendously.
The name of the book is "The Verbally Abusive Man: Can He Change?" by Patricia Evans
This book will probably give you insight to things you were and are doing that you never even realized you were doing. It is very important to understand that this is something that needs to change for you no matter what happens in your marriage. This is something that is going to take a lot of work and patience on your part. I am going to kind of highjack your thread with this next paragraph, but I do see some similarities lie you said.

From what you have shared with us so far, your W reminds me a lot of my W in my first stint here. Much like Sandi said, my W was ripe for an affair and sure enough that did happen. I remember my W saying in MC, the only time we went at first, that we didn't have a chance. That she would never ever be with me. That I would never change. She had already moved on in her mind. She was "done"
Looking back now I understand why she was done. I really worked on the things that I thought were the problems. We reconciled after 6 months. But here I am 3 years later. Turns out that I didn't get to the root of the problems. Why? Because I really didn't even realize the things I was doing. Until I started to doing research and found that book. It's been totally different. I see things completely differently. Now it has giving me a chance to save my marriage, but most importantly it is giving me a chance to be a better man and father and make sure I don't pass this down to my S. Hopefully my marriage works out, but if not I am will be in a much better place.
I am struggling with staying in an in home separation at the moment. I think I could "speed up" the process of feeling "wanted" from my W by moving out and "moving on"
But I don't want a quick fix. I want this to last. So I am having to have extreme patience. As my IC said, "all your actions and words over the years have shut your W down. This didn't happen overnight. it will take a while for her to trust you with her emotions. Only then will she open up sexually"
And so far I have see that progress. I am still in the guest room, but my W is beginning to open up to hugs and massages. She has also begin to think about the idea of me being back in MBR.
One step at a time. Just remember that DBing is about becoming the best you can be, with the hope that it gives you a shot to save your marriage