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Postponing discussion until after the court case seems to be sensitive, caring, and supportive.




I hope so.

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But please talk to your C about your own wants and needs. Continuing to subordinate them is not good for you, and, trust me, it is NOT an attractive feature to women.




I know. I do not want to continue to do this any longer than I feel I need to. I WILL address this with my C and eventually with my W.

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Your W seems very self-absorbed. These late night phone calls and mini-dramas make me wonder if she has an active substance abuse problem. Was she drinking when she called her sister late at night?




Yes, my W is self-absorbed. This I know, and it's something I need to figure out if I can accept, or if it can change. She didn't used to be this way but for the past year or so, and especially since the A, she has been. I just see it as a byproduct of the A or MLC or something. I WILL need her to be able to fill some of MY needs at some point and honestly, when I look at our marriage, she has not always been the best at that...then again, I wouldn't let her so...

As for the drinkig, you know, or at least I think you know, that I started out this whole thing with the idea that my W had a drinking problem. I still think she may, and yes, she was drinking last night. She drinks to some extent every night. Sometimes it is just a glass of wine or two with dinner, sometimes it is a bottle throughout the night.
I truly don't know if she has a "problem" or not. I know that since I stopped "having a problem", i.e. getting upset and in a "mood" as the night went on, with her drinking, it has been much more out in the open (she used to try to conceal it) and actually she's been drinking less. I don't know what to think sometimes, but I do think that I may have jumped the gun in thinking she had a "problem". It's not really something I focus on much these days.

To really go back to my "beginnings", I had to admit, and I figured this out in therapy, that if I am honest, I have a problem with drinking at all considering that I don't drink. I never really wanted to admit this, but when my C helped me understand that I felt most, if not all the people in my life who drink have a "problem" it became clear that I did not have a good idea of what that meant and was not the best person to judge. That doesn't mean she DOESN'T have a problem, it just means that I understand that I needed to try to get away from judging people just because they drink.

This is a complicating factor in my sitch, one I am not ignoring but since I removed it as my MAIN focus (I even focused on her drinking MORE than the affair in the beginning, thinking it was the CAUSE of everything) it has become a sort of non-issue. Maybe I am just in denial but I really don't see her habits as much different than anyone else I know who drinks, and trust me, in the early days, I asked a TON of people. I know her being similar or the same as others doesn't make her "right" but it does let me feel better that she is not "abnormal" so far as can tell.

GH


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