Thanks for all your reactions. The consensus was to not send this letter. I very probably won’t – though it is an accurate reflection of my feelings – it is just that Dbing for nearly 3 years now takes it toll… The letter had two goals – to focus/express my feelings somewhere (your support here is great to have) and to have a prepared reaction should the worst come to happen.
The situation, my wife turned 40 and starts talking about how good a change would be, how being married 20 years is too long, etc. Her dad died of cancer and divorced about a year before his death; my wife (and she takes after him temperamentally) thinks she may suffer the same fate. Since then, there have been yearly bombs, usually in the spring or summer, but we still live together. About a year ago, she left our bed and hasn’t been back, now referring to it as ‘your bed’. Also, and maybe worse, she since then hardly ever touches me in any way. Finally, recently she hinted that she would have no time for a family vacation this summer, but it seemed fine when I said I might take the kids away for a week. And we all just had a very nice time in Italy in November!
The whole thing feels like a rational program of gradual separation is controlling her actions (how unnatural to hardly ever touch someone!). We do have occasional letups (while skating today, she came to me and held on to me as a stopping point). Her avowed course of action is “finish the house, get a job and leave” (we are renovating an old house).
I have given her space (though I feel it is my responsibility to handle the kitchen, to contribute equally to the running of the household, and so do most of the cooking), suggested she go to the city (alone) when she wants, etc. I do bring her tea in the mornings and support her by taking the kids when possible. My job, unfortunately, sometimes has me traveling for anywhere between a day and a few weeks at a time, to far away places where I can’t help with the family.
I followed a counselor’s suggestion a while ago and asked her to please tell me how I had screwed things up, hoping that this would flush out the bad feelings. It didn’t; rather she repeated that I was "not strong enough, never fought back and too like my mother", and that finally she ‘didn’t care’. My wife is a dominant, assertive, talkative, sociable, competitive, judgmental, hard working person; I am less in each category. So now I try to conscientiously be assertive, humor her, be sociable, etc. She doesn’t believe in marriage, ‘can’t imagine celebrating a 50th anniversary’.
My new year’s goal for this year has been to DB to the max. It sure is hard sometimes to maintain my PMA in the face of this seemingly decided course of action on her part. I also hate the idea of taking a vacation without her, but maybe this is part of the LRT. A ‘single dad traveling with kids’, what a deeply depressing thought.
So Dbing has been to support her, at least by helping around the house and with the kids, giving her space, and relying on some spark of (hidden) feeling in her to rescue us from this seemingly preordained emotional death. Rational discussion seems futile.
Would you have any suggestions on how to DB given this background?
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A very different question: what would you think of a relationship difficulty related creative writing forum on the DB website – I imagine we all produce something that might be put there? The letter was a bit in that vein.
Much obliged to you all -
Luke
M58, xW54 S22, D18 M 1984, D 2016 Living a new life.
