New to the Boards. Marriage in Crisis.

[Chris73]

Peaks and valleys...

Coming off the high I experienced on Tuesday after a good therapy session and some positive recognition from my W, today I'm feeling the lows. Our problems are still very real and I know that progress is measured over the long term, but I'm feeling discouraged today.

I wish I could look in to my W's head and understand what's going on with her. In the beginning I actually tried to do this by spying on her emails, txt messages, cell phone records, and reading her journal. Obviously these were all bad ideas and I never found anything out by spying that made me feel better. Most of the time it made me feel worse, or just more suspicious.

I've stopped all that now. Partially because my wife got fed up with my big brother routine and changed her pwds, but also because I've detached. I know I can't change how she feels or what she does, and I'm definitely happier now that I've switched the focus to me. But on days like this it's really hard. I miss my wife terribly (even tho I see her every day). I miss the closeness we used to have. The closeness that I took for granted...

Anyway, we have our 2nd MC session tomorrow night and then planned to out for a drink after. I plan to keep mood of the "drink after" very light. We'll probably go somewhere that offers a distraction (billiards, bowling, etc.) so that we can enjoy each other's company without the tension of conversation as the main focus. We'll see how it goes.

As for the MC session, I need some advice. How much of my hand should I be revealing in MC? I know the intention is to talk honestly, but how do I maintain the progress I've made detaching during the session? I'm certainly not going to try to control the discussion. I hope to spend more time listening than talking. But if the subject of the change in my behavior comes up I want to be able to have a good answer. Something like, "I realized 3 weeks ago that my mindset and my actions weren't helping our situation so I decided to make a change and focus more on improving myself and focusing on the positive aspects of my life. I want to make this marriage work, but if I can't I still need to fix my own problems so that I can be a better man and father."

Thoughts...?