My wife and I are starting to get to the core of our issues in discussions. Basically, here is the dynamic that is dominating our discussions:
1) My wife believes that, at some level, I have shown her I 'don't care' about the family. This is due to issues she has with work hours, business travel, etc. I travel about 25% of the time on average, and I work about 50 hrs per week.
2) My wife believes that, fundamentally, the only way she can ensure I act 'like I care' is to try and force things. She repeatedly says some form of "the only time you do what is right is when I 'make' you do it". This particular comment I find hurtful when she says it.
3) Therefore, when I do do what is right in her eyes, she does not give me credit for doing so, because she 'made' me do it. Therefore, I cannot earn her approval, if that were my goal.
4) I believe my wife is a very needy and insecure person. She has few relationships outside our family, and so she tends to attribute too much of her self esteem to our relationship and her relationships with the boys. This in turn, manifests itself in attempts to control.
5) Since I have been pushing the intimacy issues really hard, it has become much more clear that the reason we don't have enough is because my wife lets so many insecurities from other areas of her life affect this area. Worries about our sons and their issues, worries about my work time, worries about money. She can no longer say that I am the problem, as she once did.
I believe my attempts at independence are very unsettling to my wife at the moment. At the same time, the kids are becoming more independent and need less of her time. It is a total sea change for her, and she doesn't know how to react. She can see the relationship is changing, and that her life is undergoing big changes, and she doesn't know what to do with all of it. She swings from looking forward to the future to recriminating about the past. She swings from trying to be loving to being very denigrating.
My struggle is that, no matter what I do, I cannot force her to establish a life outside the home. I have encouraged her to make friends, to go to school, to do things, but she feels she cannot, that she is 'too busy'. I have invited her on business trips, but she says she can't. I want to love her and help her, and I try, but how do I help her do this? How can I help her to let go, and to start looking outside these problems to what life has to offer her?
