Saying ILY...

[mtb1981]

I left last time I was here because I thought I was done when she came back. I put in the work and became a better person. Still applied the techniques, and thought things would get better. Like I had mentioned before, she was also fighting a pain pill addiction. I guess I was just happy to have her back home, so we could work on things, including her addiction. Wenever received MC or recieve any marital help. Big mistake on our part looking back...

I agree that she need to willingly seek help for her personal issues, but any time I ask her to get help, she sees it as an attack. I honestly think she is in denial about her issues, and chooses to blame all of her ill feeling on our relationship. I convinced her to see an IC several months ago. She went twice and quit going. It's as if once the real problems start to come to the surface, she runs away. It gets too real for her...

I haven't been catering to her or trying to rescue her from her mistakes. She doesn't deal well with consequences for her behavior. If she screws up, she comes up with a lie to tell whoever she is dealing with to justify her actions and make it not look so bad. Ex: Shows up late to work because she stayed out all night and overslept, but tells her boss that one of the kids was sick and threw up on her as she was about to leave...

I'm still unsure what to think exactly about the sleeping in the van. Sometimes I honestly think she just accidentally falls asleep. Gets home, sits in the driveway and has a cigarette while perusing facebook. Sits out there scrolling through her phone until she passes out. She's only sleeping a few hours a day because she insists on being at work all the time. I've decided to just let her sleep out there. One of her complaints was that I was controlling, and she never felt like she could do anything she wanted to do. So now, I just let her do whatever she wants. If she wants to sleep in a van for 3 hours a night in the driveway, so be it, because I have a feeling if I say she should come inside and go to bed, I would be telling her what to do...

Another complaint of hers was that I never apologize for anything. And she's kind of right. I didn't see a need to apologize for something that I didn't see as wrong, even if it bothered her, which I now see as wrong. I needed to validate her feelings of being upset and apologize for making her feel the way I did....

I've already decided that I don't want to be in a R with her if she doesn't take care of her underlying issues. So this time around, if she decides to come back and work on things, she will need to do some IC and MC for awhile before I can accept her back...