Adjusting to being a LBS....

[Subitai]

Married 11 years... together 13. It's my second marriage. Got married right out of college and it didn't last a year (EA if not a PA) and I handled that terribly.

We have a lot of good times together, but when we would disagree about things it would get bad, and she doesn't like who she is when we're fighting and doesn't understand why I would be so defensive and mean when we'd fight. And it would be over things we shouldn't have fought over, like if we got lunch early enough for the kids to not have meltdowns. She would say "Man, we should have gotten D some lunch earlier!" and I would blow up about it. I got EXTREMELY defensive at perceived criticism. She got to the point where she didn't want to talk to me about things just to avoid me being a jerk. As I said above, 3 trips to the same MC, 3 times I worked on not doing the specific things brought up without addressing the underlying problems.

Things obviously got harder with kids, and I never really got to 'reset' my fight or flight meters because there was always something going on with the kids/dogs ratcheting me up. I focused all my 'repair' work on the kids, really, and not enough on my wife.

My current IC guy is working on trauma therapy with me, not AM. He says I need to work on resetting my body's base levels of arousal (not the sexy kind) so that I can actually work on things in a productive manner, and talk to my wife in a productive manner.

I have to say, he's been right on the money. I'm far from 'cured' but just paying attention to my baseline of comfortable/twitchiness/etc has been amazing. I'm way calmer with the kids/dogs, way less defensive with my wife, and so much more able to hear her when she says things to me. And when I screw up, I'm not flipping into instant "I'm a failure, nobody will ever love me" mode that I totally get into, for reasons I'm just coming to grips with.

Basically, I'm a big old mess, and I'm trying to pull it together as quickly as possible to keep from making things worse for me and my W, regardless of saving the marriage. She wants to 50/50 the kids, and bless her for that.

I would LOVE to save the M, but I doubt I can get past the years of debt I have built up around this. That being said, trying to save the M looks like exactly the same thing as making myself as whole as possible when S and D comes, so why not?

I love her. She's been my best friend for over a decade. I still see the same woman when we talk. I'm trying not to project too much onto her because her feelings are way more complicated than being mad, hurt, or resentful. We still make each other laugh and smile.

Any specific questions?