Dealing with Devastation

[WshIKnw]

In my opinion, you should keep doing what you're doing, because it seems to be moving you in the right direction.

With my wife, the worst thing (post bomb-drop) was letting her get mad, which was done by defending myself when she would attack me. Her anger fueled her ability to leave me. And she would intentionally make herself mad and hateful so that she wouldn't hurt about what she was doing and what she had done. She would get into these awful screaming tirades, and become just super nasty. I believe it was her own guilt leading her to act like that. I feel sorry for her. But it was a huge mistake to let her get mad, because it just helped her build her wall so much bigger each time it happened. I don't know whether your wife is like that or not, but watch out. Instead of defending myself, I should have just said something like, "that's terrible that you felt that way", or something, anything other than disagreeing with her, and especially not blaming her, even if you believe it's her fault. Save blaming her for later when she's back to being a rational human being again.

My wife was "wayward", though (if you aren't familiar with that, that's Sandi's term for a walk-away wife who is leaving you for someone, or an idea of someone, or just a desire to go wild). Your wife doesn't strike me as wayward. You don't describe her as being terribly different than she usually is, other than having a wall. She may have just left to take a break for a while. It's a lot harder to get them back when they have their mind on someone else.

My wife treats me like I'm the one that cheated, and she's the innocent one, when it's the other way around (other than the non-cheating things that I did, like not making her feel special and cherished, being lazy, not being more enthusiastic about going out and socializing, etc.).