Same Sitch. New Approach. Motivated. Feeling Good.

[Chris73]

Chris - hope I'm not thread hijacking here but since I saw some great responses from you too think this is inline...

Not a hijack at all. I'm glad to have an open discussion here.

...now that W has come out of the Fog her first feedback to me was that I was being difficult and that I was pouring fuel on the fire of our relationship that was already suffering before the A. As a result I have a much deeper hole to dig myself out of (as does she).

I found this to be the case with my W as well, although I wish I could say that she's come out of her fog.

The deciding factor for me was understanding what MY contribution was to the deterioration of our marriage. Once I realized that in her eyes, pulling back, being short with my words, doing my own thing, not starting conversations, treating her like a "nosey neighbor" and being very forceful with my boundaries (e.g. "If you're not happy then YOU should move out. This is my bed. If you're not comfortable sleeping in it, there's the couch", etc.) was really just more of the same behavior from me. So not only did my actions serve to reinforce her decision to leave, but it also created a hostile environment in our home and in front of our two children. I could not let that continue.

In addition to this, the other major complaint from my W over the years has always been that I don't take any initiative or responsibility for the house and the family. I took on the role of the 3rd child in the family, making the assumption that going to work and bringing home a paycheck was all I was required to do. This is not to say that I wouldn't help when asked, but she eventually burned out being the only one responsible for managing everything.

So here you have a self-centered, self-absorbed baby-man, who never really grew up and took responsibility for anything. My W simply replaced my mother. Did my W enable this behavior? Absolutely. Was choosing to have an A as a reaction to being unhappy a bad decision? Of course.

But regardless of who did what, the problems on my side need fixing. Will fixing them save my marriage? The jury is still out on that one. But the fixing needs to happen anyway. So MY 180 is to put myself last. Do things for my W and my family that have no expectations attached to them. Be aggressive in taking on projects and responsibilities around the house. Be happy, encouraging, and generally interested in my W and what she's up to. Be helpful. Treat her the way I want to be treated. Meanwhile, I don't pursue or discuss the relationship at all. And when I start to feel resentful or burned out, I turn to my GAL activities.

The changes I've seen are minor but they're noticeable. For one thing she comes home after work more often. I attribute this partially to the fact that she feels more comfortable in our house when I'm around. A few months ago she insisted that we establish a schedule so that we don't share a lot of time together with the kids (in an effort to "prepare" them for separation). This isn't happening anymore, our family time is a lot more spontaneous and doesn't adhere to a strict "visitation" schedule. She volunteers more information about where she's going and who she's with. Of course I don't trust that she's being totally honest. But it's way better than, "I'm going out," with no additional explanation.

So I guess my point is that right now I'm very much at peace with how I'm moving forward.