A WW? (7)

[lt0402]

FG, I'm unsure my W will agree to go get professional help. She seems to have alot pent up inside her (anger, resentment, contempt) and on the surface it seems like it'd do alot of good to see an IC. I've suggested once before, after we did that one session of MC, but have not harped on it bc of the thought that it comes off as controlling. I have been thinking about taking her to the previous MC whom she seemed to open up to, but that was an attack fest on me there. I think going that approach would spell the end of my M, which may be worth it if it gets my W to a better place. Here's an example of our dialogue via text while i'm at work today:

Me: "Hey you. How's your day going? Ran into the neighbor, they said we could come over and check out their cabinets to see the work the contractor did. Thinking about grabbing D flowers for V. day, what do you think?"

W: "I already saw the cabinets and got an estimate. I told you that. I'm getting a couple more. You don't need to worry about that, i will give you the estimates tomorrow. I'm already handling it like i told you i was. Stop asking me how my day is going like you care. D already has flowers at home."

Me: "ok, let's discuss the estimates tomorrow and we can decide. I am curious how your day is going but i get that you don't want to talk about it."

W: "Why? Why do you pretend to ask about my day all of a sudden. Why do you pretend everything is fine. I'm genuinely asking bc it makes zero sense and is making things worse. it is fake. it is insulting."

Me: "I understand how you could see it that way. I took away from chatting w/ you on fri that things are not fine. How can we make things better for you?"

W: "Are you f'ing kidding me?"

Me: "No"

I'm lost in how to interact with her. At this point maybe i'm not supposed to. The interactions are just so brutal. The continuation of stuff like that just makes it seem like a dimmer and dimmer chance we can reconnect. Starting to feel worn down at this point. Maybe that's what she's attempting to do, i don't know.

DonH, i definitely don't want my D to model my Ws current behavior. D seems well balanced, but I could see how that'd be a risk. I refuse to have Ws anxiety drive our family anymore, but i tend to choose which battles are worth fighting. Last night I caught flack from her because i went in the kitchen when she was in there. She got angry and said "could you just have not waited 2 minutes until i'm out of the kitchen?". I looked at her and just responded back "i'd appreciate you not speaking to me like that". It's tiring constantly having to beat back though. The dynamic is only different now bc i push back when she flies off the handle. Trying to work on what i can fix with me, but not seeing any budging on her end.

JellyB, very interested in your thoughts on this. I find myself very quick to try to interpret Ws actions as stubborn/hateful/purposeful. She was, and may still be, a WW. However, i do know from conversations that she holds a massive amount of resentment/contempt that has been building up since day 1 of our M. Her consistent messages to me are:

1) I never took the time to have conversations with her or hear her
2) I never helped her with our D
3) I never did what i said i would do with regards to housework, especially the yard

I have worked hard to remedy #2 and #3, as well as some other flaws i've realized i have as a man/person. I know i've only scratched the surface of the work I need to do. I'm wholly unsure how to press forward w/ her reacting to me how she is currently, though. As you can tell, i've reinvigorated work on #1, but there seems to be no traction to be gained using my current approach. I do get how that resentment would have built up over time until we got here.

I've tried to really listen to her, but all i get in return from her is that I "sound like a therapist". Perhaps it's in my delivery. I'll re-read the validation thread and I've also got a book on communciation i've been meaning to rip into once i get through my current on on boundaries.

My friend Zues, talks repeatedly about how easy it is for us to diagnose our other halves, rather than opening ourselves up to truly hearing and empathising with our spouses experience. To be frank nothing about the above says diagnosable mental health issues. She is a woman going through a change and is directionless and trying to manage emotions. You are doing the same and you are confusing her too with your behaviour. She told you as much.

Ok, so this slams home. I guess my dilemma (besides working to empathize more w/ her experience) is how do i keep my changes/behavior from confusing her. I know that I cannot provide the direction for her as she works her way through her journey, but I struggle with how not to interact with her as we still share the same home. One of the issues we had was conflict avoidance and completely shutting down interaction with her seems like more of the same. I am trying to challenge her where necessary (i.e. the house stuff, my need for a partner who will love me and allow me to love them, etc) in order to create some friction w/ the hope of gaining some traction for things. I feel like if i leave things to stew then I know where this path leads and it's 9 yrs of angst until D goes off to college. I'm 100% open to your thoughts around anything here please.

In addition if I was thinking about leaving you, I wouldn't want to buy a house with you. I would be working towards either maintaining the status quo or something that was temporary. Her decision to not enter into something that it going to cause more difficulty to undo for the two of you, if your marriage doesn't get back into a good place, is a sensible one. It may well be something that you too should consider before jumping into major change.

Good point. I also would like some direction before we go this route, but i'm not averse to the idea. If we go into this with uncertainty, then i'd want the home to be something one of us could afford by ourselves. One of the reasons i want to have this conversation with her before we sell our current home.

As for your W other presentation about being indecisive and not knowing what she wants. Her marriage and family is potentially ending. Why wouldn't she be confused and indecisive, emotional snappy and unreasonable. You're struggling why wouldn't she?

All good points and highlights a need for compassion on my part. To me, it's more of the same behaviour on her end though. Highly frustrating as I've lived with it for years and am realizing now how damaging it is to not stand up to it.
But appreciate the thread you have throughout your message around compassion and empathy.

Anyway that is my 2c. Feel free to ignore.

All very much read, understood, and being slowly digested. Thank you so much Jelly for your thoughts!

The first thing is that your WAS seems to be telling you she feels that she has no voice in your relationship. She tells you that she feels you aren't hearing her and that you haven't for many years, and that because of this she endured more pain than she can manage anymore and she doesn't trust you to hear her now. And when she tells you this you disagree some more.

I'm unsure how to break this roadblock in our communication. I get that it's me who isn't hearing her, but I do feel like i'm leaps and bounds from where i had been. Whenever we talk, she always asks for me to answer her thoughts at some point. It's never really true validation, where you sit there, listen, empathize, and validate. As soon as I start to put out my thoughts on the matter is where things seem to go south. Open to thoughts here.

WAS has her version of reality which is just as right and true and reasonable as you do. And feelings are feelings. They can't be wrong. While you may feel differently than she does, that doesn't mean her feelings aren't real and that her views aren't legitimate.

When I read your responses I can see why she might feel defeated. You aren't hearing anything she is saying. You are minimizing, diminishing, dismissing, disagreeing, or at best placating. You say you want to do things jointly, as long as it fits the relationship repair program you seem to have etched in your mind and meets your timelines as well.

I'd recommend you read the validation cheat sheet a few times a day for a while and to reread some of your posts and conversation highlights.

http://www.divorcebusting.com/forums/ubbthreads.php?ubb=showflat&Number=2457566&page=1

What if...what if...what if? What if her feelings were legitimate, and because of how you've acted in the past she has suffered and has very valid reasons for being protective of herself and mistrustful of you? Wouldn't this be good information to know if you want to save your marriage?

I do believe her feelings are legitimate based on our past history. I know I've not heard her in the past and looking back there are points where we could have been more collaborative on things. Your point about "minimizing, diminishing, dismissing, disagreeing, or at best placating" hits home bc I'm not trying to do that, but can see how it's construed or can come across to her as such. That's started from a place of having boundaries, one of which is that I'm not willing to be spoken to horribly. In the past i'd asked her to not speak to me like that and then extricated myself from the conversation. Maybe now I'm finding myself more willing to stick it out and push back, which you're right, is probably counterproductive. A delicate balance and hard to find the right time to take either tact.

What are your beliefs about divorce? Is it ok to divorce because your spouse doesn't want to work on their marriage the way you feel you should work on it, when you want them to? You throw out timelines and conditions, how do you excuse your own neglect for the last 10 years and now demand her instant prioritization of your needs? Is it because she was wrong to feel that way for 10 years, but you're right to feel the way you feel now?

I push because I find myself deciding i'm not willing to grind out an existence like this for the next 9 years. I've no excuse for my faults over the past 10 years. If i could take my frame of mind now and impart it on myself back then I'd do it in a heartbeat. I feel like i'm in a place now where I would have been able to properly grow my M with my W 10 years ago. Getting there now that we're in this hole I've dug, though, seems to require a level of self realization and compassion i've yet to attain. It's almost like reading a book to learn how to disarm a nuclear bomb, as you stare at one w/ a countdown sitting at 100 seconds. I'm unsure how exactly to get up to speed quick enough to help the ship right itself. Does that make sense?

In the end no one is going to be 'happy' if happy means getting everything they want. The question is whether we want to be unhappy and separate and blame our spouse and raise children in a broken home setting a poor example that will hurt their future relationships, or do we want to be unhappy and accept that it's because the world is difficult and we don't always get what we want but honor the commitments we made and live for things beyond our current mood so we can be unhappy inside of an intact family with good kids and a dependable partner and maybe somedays when you least expect it realize that love means acting loving when you don't feel like it and you are surprised to feel fulfilled in a way more meaningful than just getting what you thought you wanted at the moment?

Very good point. I don't take the divorce question lightly. I'm not looking for an easy out, or to escape with no blame. I'll always accept the blame for allowing my M to get where it currently sits. It makes me sad to think about how easy it would have been to fix this years ago had i had the tools. I don't need everything in the world to be happy in my M. I want my D to be successful and well balanced in life and have an intact family unit. I just realize that i also have needs. One of which is a partner who would be there for me. I know that's asking alot, as i've not been the best at being there for my W the past 10 yrs, but I don't see in our current state how we live in anything but "this" without some challenge and change...

lt, I guess what I'm trying to say is that you could benefit from some humility here. DR calls it the beginner's mind. The idea that you may be missing something, there is something going on you might not be able to see if you think you can see it all. I hear you shouting your own narrative of how you see things and what's happening, and it's drowning out what she's telling you.

This. I agree. I'm constantly worried that my bias is being imparted in the telling of this stuff. Perhaps i'm too in my own head. I'll reread this section of DR as well. I do not want to drown anything out, but I feel like i'm trying my hardest to hear for that small thing, but can't find it in any of the noise.

I get it, it's hard and scary because if you listen to what she's telling you it might not be what you want to hear, and maybe that means you have to accept things you don't want to accept, like the loss of a marriage, or the fact you won't get everything you want in your life, or that you might not always be happy. But there's also a chance that begins a true dialogue the likes of which WAS has been craving for years, and that there is a way for things to work out to a point that, while not able to meet all of your demands, might be wholesome and fulfilling in ways you can't even appreciate right now.

I'd take anything from her right now with regards to positive/neutral communication. I can't seem to get out of the spew aspect of this. If the message is that our M won't work, then we can discuss how to work through that. If the message is that it takes x-y-z to make it work, then we can work through that too. I'm just at wits end that I'm unable to discern a coherent message either way. Maybe i'm too deep in this thing to see it though. Thank you Zues for all of the honest/open thoughts and feedback. They are very much appreciated!

I do appreciate the different angle offered by Jelly & Zeus. As DB coaches like to say, YOU are the one on the "front lines" so only you know how best various advices offered apply to your situation.

I do hope it is the case that Jelly & Zeus's take on the situation is right. Maybe if you (LT) spent a couple of weeks totally focusing on:
a) really listening to your W;
b) try not to fix a single thing, don't be a fixer;
c) respect her every wish.

Maybe it's worth trying to see if that changes her anger & contempt for you? Or maybe you've already tried this....

FG, yeah, i completely see what you're getting at. I know that b and c lead to nowhere with her. a is something i definitely need to work on.

The discussion has been good to get my brain thinking from a different angle though. It's possible that me taking a step back and looking at it from a different lens is in order. I don't think I can drop the piece around pushing back against her anxiety as that doesn't seem healthy. But I need to make sure that I'm able to validate and empathize in those rare moments she gives me. Some skills that have perhaps dropped off somewhat in the past few months.

JellyB, please don't feel like you need to exit. Happy to have your thoughts here as well. Regardless, i appreciate you having taken the time to opine!

To all of you, know that you are extremely appreciated. We're all in the midst of some difficult things and I cannot express how thankful i am that you've chosen to help me in mine.