Newbie, need help with WAW!

[180Man]

There is a HUGE difference between reading this:
to your wife, and just embodying it. From what you say, it sounds like you were trying to convince HER to change. That doesnt sound very validating to me.

I was in counseling working very hard to listen to what she had to say, what she thought our problems were leading up to this. Of course I can learn and improve my ability to validate, but I was anything but brow beating her with change.

In my opinion, your goal should be to BE the change. You arent going to convince her to do anything with your words. It's your actions.

Agreed. And only I can figure out what that looks like. Though I'm open to thoughts and suggestions, too.

So you show up. You act confidently. You engage in listening. You validate her feelings (not AGREE with them. VALIDATE them). That is anything but 'softie'.

Okay. I'm hearing you. I'm still confused, but I'm hearing what you're saying and I think I need to go think about it.

Im not seeing your 'problem'. She asked for time, but you want to impose YOUR limit on what 'time' means. I think THATS your problem.

Well, I think we're misunderstanding here. She did not ask for time. She asked for a divorce but offered multiple times to answer any questions I have (via email). I waited a couple of weeks and instead of emailing her with questions I emailed and called her out for avoiding the situation and our issues, for living in an echo chamber, for running away, for not being willing to talk to me face-to-face about our feelings. She replied two weeks later (this past Monday) and said she agreed that we should sit down and talk in person and asked if I would be willing to.

She asked me if I would be willing to talk to her. I didn't push this on her, I just told her she was avoiding our problems and running away. For all I knew she would never reply to that email and I would get served with papers.


Through all of what you write, I notice a large focus on her. Im not seeing where you are regrowing into the 'man she fell in love with'. How can you focus more on THAT?[/quote]

That's a good point and one I have been working on. I do need to focus more on me. And I need to remind myself of that as I go along. In fact, there's likely a fun part-time job I can get if I do some paperwork, some studying, and take an exam. It would be great for my resume and would be great for me personally. It would get me back to doing what I love, even if it's just on the side. So...yes...I need to do that.