Eh, crap. Another talk last night about how I'm not showing any real love through my actions. W doesn't want to spend another 10 year trying to work on something that's just not going to work. It all sounds like the same old thing, but I think some good came out of it.
The issue I mentioned yesterday about the different viewpoints on emotions and your own involvement in creating them came up. She was really hurt when I told her that I thought that just because you feel something doesn't make it real. I tried to explain this - telling her that I thought that she was ignoring her own involvement in creating her emotions, and that if she was hurt by something I did, then she wasn't looking at my intentions because that's not what I want to do. She then told me that there's such a huge disconnect between my intentions and my actions. This is clearly something I need to work on. I can't tell you how difficult it is to discern between her crap and the real issues, and that's where a big part of this problem is.
She told me she thought I was being mean by not trying to take care of her - a couple of examples: I went out to dinner with S4 and she went out with her friend. I didn't offer to get her anything. I thought she would take care of herself. She was offended and upset that I would think so. Part of this is purposeful on my part because I know that she would benefit from doing for herself. I have been called an enabler, and when I stop doing it I'm mean.
It's to the point where I almost don't care anymore. I'm doing what I don't want to be doing, and that's looking to her issues as the cause of all of this. I haven't been looking as hard at my part - what I can change - and actively doing what I can.
She told me that she thought that once a person decides to stop trying completely there's little to nothing the other person can do to make them want to try. She said at that point it's over. I told her that she was right, that both people had to want to try, but that I was hoping she'll decide to try, or she'll want to try at some point. She told me she doesn't think she will.
So I have all of these signs from her actions and attitude towards me that tell me that she's still fighting the fight. She's trying to get me to change (Oh yeah, she's said more than once that she shouldn't look at herself or her actions as solutions because she's not the one that professes to love me or want to make things work), and I'm not doing a good job, or doing what's expected.
I reconnected with someone I went to college with on Friday. She has a strange outlook on my M and thinks my W controls me. I had a falling out with her before we got married, which was my choice because I got tired of some of her antics. She attributed it to my W. I reconnected with her because we did have some good times, despite her baggage, and I thought it might provide me with opportunities to meet new people and grow my circle of friends. W found out that I contacted her and was upset, telling me that because she thinks this way about my W I shouldn't want to talk to her and the fact that I would is pushing my W away.
So needless to say I'm a bit discouraged. I really want to give it what I feel is quickly becoming a last ditch effort. It may be too little too late now. I can see overall my W is really trying to grab control, and this is what she's not getting. I think the fact that I'm not acting the way she expects me to is throwing her for a loop and taking away the control she's looking for. Do I give in and let her feel control even though the marriage is not going to work this way? Is this a good faith gesture at this point to show my sincerity? I don't know how she doesn't see my sincerity at this point (she told me that I haven't been fighting for her, yet she told me my changes seemed to be all for the purpose of saving the M - go figure), and I think she's egging me on trying to get more of an ego boost out of this situation.
What do you guys think?
“No problem can be solved from the same level of consciousness that created it. ” – Albert Einstein
