Thanks for the advice, it is good to hear from both of you and hear your prospective on my sitch. I am clearly not out of the woods, in fact I would say I am in a swamp up to my neck. I am in the process of discovering a new way to live my life. It is very easy to talk about; however, extremly difficult to implement. The pain I feel is related to a couple of things, projecting a negative future of how life will be for my two sons and feeling sorry for myself regarding the position I am in. These are both a waste of time and I have reframed my way of thinking. There is no need to focus on a bad outcome and even if that does happen, it does not mean that it will be bad. I need to GAL that includes my family. In the past I would work ten hours a day, workout 6 days a week and really just be a weekend dad and husband. I did not listen to may wife, validate her thoughts, show compassion, be romantic on a regular basis or anticipate her needs. He$$ I thought my needs were her needs. In the process I became a very boring person that could only talk about work, kids, and current events. I was also not in touch with my own feelings and therefore had difficulty expressing my own needs. I have been working with a C to understand my background. With all this being said, I now work 8 hours a day, spend time with my family each night, work on projects at the house and try to engage my w in conversation. The engaging in conversation is the hardest for me when we talk about trying to connect at a deeper level. I realize God gave me these skills; however, I feel that I am learning how to use them for the very first time and as my w points out I am like a grade school kid in this area. She has doubts that I can ever get to a level that she would be happy with. Again it seems so easy when we talk about loving someone the way they want to be loved, but somehow my words and actions sometimes sabotage the goals I have set for a new R with my W. I question if at a subconcious level I am scared to change? I have done things one way for so long that is fear sabtoging the efforts I am putting forth. I now see when I miss opportunties to love my w in a way she would like to be loved. This is progress given that in the past I did not even see these items. I now know some of the things that need to be done, I just need to do them and at the same time keep impoving who I am through development of other skills. Any suggestions regarding GAL that includes the whole family would be appreciated. I need to bring something else to the R other than boring conversation and money.
