Quote: Are you distancing because you're trying to get a reaction out of her, (i.e., trying to get her to intiate physical intimacy) or are you distancing because you are emotionally exiting the marriage? Because, if it's the first reason, that's just being manipulative, IMO. If it's the second reason, you need to just tell her that's what you're doing. Another reason for distancing is to maintain your integrity and be less needy, clingy, pressuring, etc.
To answer your question Hairdog, It's definitely not my intent to emotionally exit my marriage. But my reasons for distancing are probably some combination of the other two. My immediate goal is to maintain my integrity while giving my wife some space. But I'd be lying if I said that I'm not also hoping to eventually get a reaction out of her. It's possible that I've misunderstood some of the advice that I've received on here, but one of my reasons for distancing was to "upset the apple cart" as Lillie said on a previous post.
I really don't like being manipulative and would very much prefer If I could just talk to my wife about what's bothering me and have her care enough about me to do something about it. But I've been trying that now for years without any improvement whatsoever. I honestly don't know what else to do, so I'm trying something that seems to me like it could easily push us farther apart rather than bringing us closer together. I feel like George Costanza - I just think of what I would usually do, then I do the opposite. It's actually not that extreme, but hopefully you get my point.
So what do you think - is distancing going to do more harm than good? Please give me your opinions and advice.
