I see you POV. I have dropped 25 lbs since last year and run and work out, not as regularly as I used to b/c of commitments to kids.
I made the comment and am pondering my courseof action from the standpoint of her comment of "veverything will be fine"
I see two palth I can chose. One not believe her ane take appropriate action, an exit strategy, and set things in motion to an outcome that I truly do not desire at this point. Setting destiny IOW.
Two take the leap of faith. Commit to marriage, family, and wife. No expectations no tests. In doing so do not set reactionary protocols in place. Live and let live. Find happiness in my truest self and in my life. Continue to unravel the enmeshment in my wife and identify the point of enmeshment that trigger my anxiety. A long and engaging process, as Cobra stated.
I am choosing #2. I believe Cobra, and many others, correctly identified my beahvior as a form of a gam, Russian Rouleete. Maybe too late, but I decide to stop playing and get back to working and reality. To give hinestly to my marriage and my wife. If it is not reciprocated or is thrown away. Deal with it, pull up my big boy pants and get on with life.
F4W
Through honest giving of my love I will recieve 10 fold in return.
Just because a person does not love you in the way you want, does not mean they do not love you!
My thoughts on your predicament are this: it seems you are confusing a SSM with a WAW. I believe you have a full-fledged in-home WAW, but you are trying to apply the principals of a SSM....in my opinion, these are two completely different animals! I believe a SSM is one where one spouse is HD, one is LD and the LD doesn't see anything wrong in the marriage. Based on all of your postings, this is not at all where your wife is.
You need to treat her like the WAW that she is. Brian has given you good advice.
I know you get tired of me harping on you about this. I truly just want to help.
Your W sounds like me a year ago. I know that 'dead inside' feeling. I felt as if some emotional breaker had been blown inside me. I didn't 'feel' anything. I thought I wanted a divorce too... I thought I'd be so much better off on my own... soooo laughable!
It was when my H went into his own crisis that reality hit me... I was going to LOSE my H!! That reality hit me like a big fat brick from about 20,000 feet!
You're wife doesn't want to lose you. And that is why she hasn't filed for D. It's an idea... a fantasy. I wish I knew what to tell you to do to snap her out of it... I know it was when my H withdrew from me that did it for me.
I can tell you that pressure will keep her there... work, home/kids, you...
F4W I agree with Cupcake. You have stepped beyond SSM and are now dealing with a WAW. The problem here is that you cannot commit to a M that does not exist! My point is that you need to accept that if she chooses to walk, then you have no power or control. Giving in and saying that you will do it her way does not mean she will come back. Most importantly, if you cave on all your convictions, they your W will have no respect for you. Consequently, your M would be doomed any way.
I agree with your statement that you should “stop playing and get back to working and reality”. That is exactly what you should do. Focus on yourself and strive to be the best individual that you can. However, you need to stop “giving of yourself” to your W because she does not want that from you right now. In fact, by giving of yourself, you are actually driving her farther away. My advice, treat her like a roommate and nothing more right now. Give her space! If she comes back to you and wants to change that status back to a M, then and ONLY then do you talk about mutual expectations. To summarize, F4W, you have to be the alpha male here right now. Be strong, demonstrate that you can be your own man, and leave your W alone until she decides where her priorities lie.
Hope this helps.
By all means marry; if you get a good wife, you'll be happy. If you get a bad one, you'll become a philosopher. -- Socrates
My mistake. I do see where it was your W who said she was filing. For some reason I have it stuck in my head that you are the one doing all the pushing. So, scratch a lot of what I said. But you did tell her to do what she needed to do, so she filed. She might see that as a challenge, to which she responded, rather than back down. To me that dilutes your statement that you do not want to divorce. I recall you saying you have cried wolf several times before, so it makes sense she is not listening to you, but rather watching your actions. So she may see your statements as non-committal.
I think you’ve made the right decision. I wouldn’t worry about what she does. Take her at face value when she says everything will be OK. But I don’t think you should assume so much that she will hop in bed with you. Remember, you have a credibility gap to overcome. As hard as it will be, put sex on he backburner and do all you can to show her a new you. This should NOT include being passive and letting her control you, but instead setting good boundaries, holding to them and striving to get to a new level of integrity.
For my W, it help for me to tell here what I was learning and understanding. She didn’t necessarily want to hear it because it put her into a crucible. By that I mean she used to complain about a whole list of things. That gave her certain power over me, the counselor could easily take her side on things. As I corrected each issue, she slowly lost that superior position, and was then left with little moral footing to justify her continued anger. So I have had to confront her on this several times, telling her that she asked for these changes, and now that I’ve made them, she can’t accept the new me. WTF?
She then brings up the trust issue (just like your W?), saying that I am responsible for her not having trust in me. I called BS on this one, but to do so, I had to address her complaints first. Now my argument back to her is how long is necessary for her to get over her resentment? She cannot answer this because the answer does not depend on me. It depends on her and her taking a leap of faith. So now she is in the crucible.
I am gently but consistently keeping the pressure on her to address this inconsistency, because it truly is HER issue now. I have disarmed her. She has few excuses left and now must confront the real issue, her vulnerability and fear of commitment. This has been THE major issue on her side that has damaged our relationship. But she is masterful at deflecting this. As long as I have some fault, she will use that as a defense first. If have been my own worst enemy. Now we are approaching the real moment of truth. So how fast you can get to the same point is up to you.
Your definition of SSM being only a difference in drives seems like only one of many possibilities. Usually there is a lot more going on under the surface which impacts the sex drive. The same applies to a WAW. The sex is not the issue at all. This exact same thing applies to what is being discussed on all the other boards. It’s just that this is the only board smart enough to know that!
So stick around. You’ll learn something. The posters here are that good!
Cupcake and Brian: I am not disputing the fact she is in WAW mode, she may be. Not disputing the fact that it has been cyclical. But I will comment on what I feel and what I know in my mind and heart.
OK, start we were here little over a year ago. Same comments, Same feeling, same WAW. So I DB, I followed the cook book, a few slip ups and bam she has A. So you can see where I am a bity leary to jump right back into the approach. Upon discovery, I lost my compass and went everywhere and anywhere in the relationship. Resentment, anger, jealousy, self pity, slef loathing. This cost me a valuable opportunity to rebuild. I would start and just as W states I would explode. Start again. Repeat. Cyclical loop of destruction.
Then I came over here. There is no confusion of what the issue is. I am not here because I am attributing all my issues in my R to SSM. Far from it. I am here because in lurking here, I found some very solid people that are approching this in a way to address the only issue you can address, ourselves. I keep my other thread b/c there are great people there also. So please do not think I am minimizing this to a SSM issue.
So I am choosing to approach this from the "leap of faith" standpoint. From that I am trying to have no expectations. The only one that I can have is to expect myself to be true to what I say by actions and not live in contradiction to that.
I see the other approach as valid but not necessarily the only method here.
Breaking this down a bit further.
Point 1: Wife has stated she wants D (again) but yet no action.
Point 2: Wife admittedly states that this is not the only thing she has no caring or emotion for. (job, family, friends all are getting the same emotional deadness)
Point 3: I am seeing here request for space to be two-fold, one from having to face the issues she has and her pressures of her job. In the past, allowing her to do as she wished and play the guilt card on me and smothering card on me led to her feeling of entitlement and her having an A.
So that leads me to this point. As you both have stated, she is WAW. So I have nothing to lose. It is her choice. But I also feel that I will not further that choice by inaction and allowing her to dismiss the issues so easliy through divorce. I do not like this and I am taking my ball and leaving. Which I have been guilty of doing also.
I am choosing to allow myself to trust my wife and her statement. If it is false, then it is false and she files and we D. If it is true, I have shown trust in my leap of faith and started to rebuild.
There is great pain at the end of any of these roads if she is set on D. I am choosing the one path that shows I am taking the leap of faith.
As Cobra states in his post, this will take time and I carefully need to be able to interact without creating any doubt of what my intentions are. Do not act in a way that betrays that leap of faith, but do not proceed without boundaries.
I believe it is balance. Being able to allow her to have space and not feel threatened. To be able to seek her and not feel rejected if not taken up on. The sex deal is a reaction to me and my desire. I can control that and not act or act. But again the boundary that I have set is I will not be able keep moving in a relationship that is not loving, lacking in intimacy, and sexless. Will that decision come tomorrow? No.
I will end with this. The only one who knows what my wife is is my wife. This could be MLC, WAW, SSM, onset of early menopause, FOO issues, a whole slew of them or heaven forbid ALL OF THEM. For me to diagnose it is dangerous. For me to treat it with only one solution is even more dangerous. The only real solution here is change me and my actions.
F4W
Through honest giving of my love I will recieve 10 fold in return.
Just because a person does not love you in the way you want, does not mean they do not love you!
First thank you for sharing about you. This clarifies some things.
She has not filed as of yet. Not to say she would not. I believe here knowing I have seen an attorney and have taken steps to protect me threw her for a loop.
As to her hopping in bed with me....WHY NOT? Joke. I understand this and I would not assume that. This is not a do or die issue nor an issue I am willing to address currently. Much work to be done.
I agree with disarming the situation. By bringing sex back into the equation, she then reloads that this is all about sex, you say things to get sex. I also see where disarming other arguements, space. I have called BS on this issue and still do. She has space. The real issue is she does not like me calling her during the day. I am assuming (dangerous here) that she sees it as a method of check and control of her actions. Have not phoned her but a few times in days. I am now leaving messages with her aide to relay. She wants freedom of action, I am sorry but in marriage there is no real such thing, a spouse should know when things are happening and what time frames are. Other ones is being clingy, no physical contact for days.
Now this leads me here. At some point there will be a measure of progress, I am attempting to give you what you ask for, how are you doing on your changes (or something like that). It is that itegrity level.
It is not how fast, I feel, it is getting started. But I cannot start her on that path. She needs to take that leap on her own.
Through honest giving of my love I will recieve 10 fold in return.
Just because a person does not love you in the way you want, does not mean they do not love you!
Yep, you have to go with gut feel, and only you know that. It's just so tough to work on things when the other party isn't in the "working on it" mode. It forces us into a stand-still, which drives us crazy (me included).
Hang in there, I think the 5 days will do you both a bit of good.
Not to hijack - but I will:
Cobra - I think my point was that usually in a SSM, the LD spouse thinks all things are hunky-dory if only the HD would stop pestering about that S$x thing! obviously, there are many underlying issues that lead to a SSM. But it is a totally different issue from the WAW scenario. A WAW wants out and ain't nobody changing their mind. I have unfortunately been a party to both situations.
