I appreciate the help. I already poored my heart out to her telling her that it was my fault I wasn't receptive to her and I've been working on that. I'm also getting councling starting next week.
She just says she never felt it for me, that she got married cause she was pregnant and felt pressure from her family to do the right thing. I don't know how to change myself to feel it for me.
I'm starting to feel like there is no saving it and I should just move on as hard as that may be for me. She says I'm sweet and treat her good just that I'm not her fairy tale and she wants the Romance Novel passion and she will never find that with me.
I don't know what to do, it seems if I try to be nice it pushes her away, it creeps her out when I do sweet things for her. I leave her alone and she gets more distant. I am very confused as how I need to procede besides GAL.
Quote: She just says she never felt it for me, that she got married cause she was pregnant and felt pressure from her family to do the right thing. I don't know how to change myself to feel it for me.
I'm starting to feel like there is no saving it and I should just move on as hard as that may be for me. She says I'm sweet and treat her good just that I'm not her fairy tale and she wants the Romance Novel passion and she will never find that with me.
Just so you know, my W told me that she only married me to please her parents because they liked me. She said that I made her feel safe and comfortable but that she couldn't live without true passion in her life.
This is standard WAS-speak. It's what they all say. The A changes their perspective. Don't let it get to you. You know that it's not true.
Quote: I don't know what to do, it seems if I try to be nice it pushes her away, it creeps her out when I do sweet things for her. I leave her alone and she gets more distant.
Leave her alone. She needs distance before you have any chance to reconnect with her.
The LORD is near to all who call on him, to all who call on him in truth." (Psalm 145:18)
I'm just so confused, I've been really listening to her and I swear I'm buying her story. It's been great that she has been sharing her feelings it feels good no matter how much those feelings hurt me.
It just sucks she wants to stay in the house till it sells, we have dinner with the kids together, she jokes around with me and laughs a lot of the time. like at dinner she took a drink of my coke then jokingly licked it all over. She wants us to do all kinds of things that are planned. How am I supposed to feel in those situations? She says I'm like her brother. How do I give her space like she says she wants, but then on the other hand she wants to do all kinds of stuff together???
Also about the OM situation?? Do I just let it be like that it doesn't bother me? or Do I show her that it bugs me. She says he's just a friend???? She says she says she has to hide it because he has a penis that I would be mad??? But she has had guy friends in the past.
Quote: She wants us to do all kinds of things that are planned. How am I supposed to feel in those situations? She says I'm like her brother. How do I give her space like she says she wants, but then on the other hand she wants to do all kinds of stuff together???
That's the most difficult thing in the world. Honestly, I couldn't do it. Of course, I kicked my W out before I read DR, but I don't think I could have done it anyway. I was too hurt and angry, because my W had already asked for my forgiveness and supposedly wanted to work on her marriage, but she went back to the OM. I needed my own space before I could work on DB.
If you can do it though, that's what you should do. What we mean by giving your W space is emotional space ... not being needy or initiating R talks. If she wants to do stuff with you, that's great and you should encourage that. Be her friend for now.
Have you read DB or DR yet? I strongly suggest you do and implement the tools Michelle gives you in her books.
Sometimes doing nothing is the most powerful thing you can do.
I guarantee your wife doesn't really know what she wants right now. I suspect she wants to have her cake and eat it too. As painful as this is for you, you need to give her time and space to fully "get" what she is doing and what she risks losing.
Take care of you. Do something special for yourself today. Go for a run or lift weights, it's almost impossible to continue thinking about your sitch when you are puffing and sweating from exercise. Distract yourself.
In our culture we do want instant results, when we feel pain we pop a pill to take it away, if that doesn't work we take another one. There is no pill for this - we just have to live through it.
The most important thing I've learned through my journey is patience. Sometimes the universe sends us painful lessons to learn important truths. Maybe this is one.
Please take care of yourself.
V
Never make someone a priority, who makes you an option.
Honestly, doesn't your W really already know that it bugs you? For now, ignore the OM (and I'm pretty sure that's what he is, even if your W won't admit it). If and when your W tells you that she is ready to work on your M, then you can address the issue head on.
The LORD is near to all who call on him, to all who call on him in truth." (Psalm 145:18)
As always, hate to see you here. That said, man, you have to open your eyes. If you were all that you think you were in this marriage, I doubt there is a woman alive that would have left or "given up" on you. Sorry if that sounds harsh.
I thought that too for about a day after my bombs fell. Before that, I thought it ALL THE TIME. I was the best husband, father, etc. I was THE MAN right up until my W told me she didn't love me anymore and was having an affair.
As RB said, YOU HAVE to get off that pedestal NOW. Everything you put in that email and everything you are posting is from the perspective of someone who is SURE he is righteous and is dealing with a devil woman, bent on doing her evil. That is NOT THE CASE. She is doing what she thinks will make her happy because SHE IS NOT HAPPY in your marriage.
Now, it IS possible that she is 90% responsible for that unhappiness but more likely that you are responsible for a decent amount of it. In DBing, we do not recognize and accept responsibility because we are weak or because our spouses don't have their issues to deal with. We look for our faults in the marriage and address them on a personal level because IT'S ALL WE CAN DO. We can't control them, we can only control ourselves.
SO, with that in mind, one of the worst things to see here is someone who refuses to admit any part in the demise of their marriage because if that is the case, then there is really nothing to work on. If YOU were perfect, or as you say, gave 110%, then you're done. Nothing more to do. You gave it all and then some. Oh, and BTW, if you gave like 110%, then that doesn't leave much for her to do. Maybe you were trying too hard. Maybe you know you put that much effort into it because you did SO many loving things for her all the time. The problem may be that you did things that YOU find to be loving and maybe were missing the mark for her. Something to think about.
Anyway, you need to just realize that no matter how small it seems, you need to find a chink in that armor of yours and look into it to find something you can do better for YOURSELF, something to work on.
You can do this. Just calm down on the superman act and concentrate on you. The bottom line is that you want your W back more than you want to be right...right?
For the first while, I didn't see the things that I was doing wrong, looked at the things H was doing wrong and kept thinking "if he could change <this> we could work this out."
Although he DID things wrong, I did too.. It's the chicken and the egg thing that is described in the DR book.. if you put the focus on who did what first.. you're going to fail. Recognizing your behaviors is the only way that you're going to be able to find your way forward. I thought that by doing EVERYTHING for H, I was being a good wife.. but I wasn't happy doing it.. I was being controlling and "expecting" something from it.. not just doing things because I honestly wanted to do things for him. It made me unhappy and a pretty miserable person to be around.
So, of course you weren't perfect.. were any of us?
Do some soul searching, listen to her complaints and REALLY look at your behavior. No one leaves the perfect spouse just 'because.'
That being said.. sorry to hear about your sitch. Hope you can work towards a more PMA, DB your butt off.. and get some results.
Link to stuff from the spring.. before I gave up...or he moved. Either way.
First of all thanks everyone! It's good to know there is support out there.
I get what is being said, I feel hurt and although I think the things I am doing are right they are not. Tonight my wife was actually more chatty than usual about our R all brought on by her.
I do have a lot of issues I'm trying to resolve for myself and I know I have a lot of them... Hence the reason I'm going to start up councling sessions next week.
My W has shown some improvement with me at least she is sharing however I feel guilty because she says she doesn't want to talk to me cause she doesn't want me to feel like there is hope for our R so I tell her I just want to be her friend and be there for her. She has her mind made up she is determined very strong headed when she makes a decision she goes for it with everything in her life (which I love about her but not in this case). I am looking for what the exact problem is with my actions and what she's not getting. I'm also writing down all these things that she tells me so I can be reminded of them everyday and work on changing those.
So many mixed signals though, tonight she also seemed determened to talk about what she is going to be moving out soon and what is hers and mine. We haven't disagreed on anything yet but I find it hard to have those talks. Although we are in a very wierd situation our house needs to get on the market to sell since I am moving away in 6 months. I am still wondering if I never should have took this job (she thinks it's best in our current state) she really acted just 2 weeks ago like she wanted to move, put in a transfer at her job and everything, then said she didn't want to leave family behind. This job is our financial freedom plus some. Money always seemed to be a big issue with us.
How do I give her space like she says she wants, but then on the other hand she wants to do all kinds of stuff together??? 
I am still wondering if I never should have took this job (she thinks it's best in our current state) she really acted just 2 weeks ago like she wanted to move, put in a transfer at her job and everything, then said she didn't want to leave family behind. This job is our financial freedom plus some. Money always seemed to be a big issue with us.