I think our marriage is on the mend.

[Energizer Bunny]

I really needed to see something positive this morning. Thank you for sharing.

I think that a lot of people come here and vent about the negative (this is a good place for it), but just stop coming here if/when things start to improve.

Thanks again for sharing. It's just enough brain fuel to keep some of us going.

I pray that you end up with a better marriage than you ever had before. From my understanding, these situations can ultimately bring two people closer together than ever.

[Buttercup37]

Wow - men seem so random/quick to us when they decide to go into mlc or maybe in your case...out of it! It's good news. It sounds like you need to switch to falling back in love mode...as well as building back trust with lots of small kind acts and words. It's great that you have been hugging him - is moving that up to really kissing him a possibility? Some studies and books I read claim that the best way to fall back in love is to start doing all the little nice things you'd do if you were in love with him (even if it feels uncomfortable at first.) Don't they call that on this board "Acting AsIF"?

Good Luck and hope to hear your progress!

[orangedog]

Yes, it is nice to read about some positive changes. Keep going!

Prednisone and the like can cause mood changes. TV anchor Jane Pauley wrote about it in her book "Skywriting" and talked about it on the radio show "The Infinite Mind". Ask your doc.

[june72]

Things are going well! Family is well, nothing seriously, little colds here and there but not like this summer. I actually did get some work again. Not enough financially but something.
Hubby and I are very affectionate and I am still reading my marriage books. Can't get enough of them. IDK, kind of waiting for the other shoe to drop...just wondering is this the new norm I guess. If so, I'm liking it.

[undefeated]

Thank you, June. While I feel like my H and I are at one of our lowest points, you're sitch gives me hope. We all need to hear that this really can get better.

[june72]

Gee, thanks undefeated.

Yeah, things seem ok. Our lives are still tough b/c our little one is still having the fever problems. I was puked on yesterday and the the kitchen floor got it today. SO lack or sleep, frustration, etc. We've been tracking the fevers and ironically when my son is actually sick with something- strep, cold, etc. his fevers are not as high and he is not as sick. Thinking of following up with the Immunologist and Inf. Dx doctor we saw this summer at the Children's Hospital since the rheumatologist is out of ideas and just moving to treatment options. I would rather know what is going on. The fevers of concern seem cyclic and somethings have been ruled out and autoimmune issues are a concern now.

My older one feels neglected at times and I feel bad for that. He pretends to be sick for attention and I feel bad calling him on it. "No, you have to go to school" but I make attends to give him lots of love and attention too.

So, our lives are not ideal for GALing and focusing on the marriage at times but the older my son gets the easier it will be. I do feel trapped at home A LOT. I feel like a make plans only to cancel them. Living vicariously though the internet-hehe.

[june72]

I have moments of really negative chatter in my head, negative thoughts. Memories of when I considered my hubby treating me really badly. It's been less and less. I just need to look at his actions now and not live in the past.

I had thought the marriage was very, very done. I was ready to D only when I had some money and the kids were a little bit older. He knows all this. I was at first the WAW, I could see his sadness and upset over my wanting to leave, talking about separation and D, but did not care. I mean you can only call someone names and ignore their needs and be mean to them for so long. He lost weight, he could not sleep- I just did not care for some reason. My only goal was to get the hell away from him. I also had alternative thoughts of having an affair to get my needs met since I felt neglected and rejected for so long. He knows this too. Sex had been one sided and he felt there was never "time" for my needs, although I would make a huge fuss- crying, yelling, etc. Then the eventual sex ban but I always caved b/c I felt like only a mean wife would do that. He always thought I was too fat even when I was not overweight, he would get angry about it.

When I was thinking about walking- THEN, he agreed to marriage counseling. But it wasn't about improving us- it was about all that was wrong about me. What I needed to improve on. Not once did we even touch upon my wants and needs and things that had to change for me. As soon as we walked in to the MC- I could tell she seemed to side with the man. She was single, no kids, worked part time. She had not true idea of what being a wife was like. Worse, she started out insurance paperwork and never finished it for months so I could not move on to a new MC like I had wanted.

I did not play the victim I was determined to give it a go no matter what. I was starting to feel super anxious and sick b4 appointments but I kept up with it.

I am not innocent folks. I was the queen nagger, I would yell and get angry quickly. I would bring up the past. I would not see his side only my side of issues and always thought if only he would change. Not thinking that I should change too. I really, really had thoughts that maybe an affair in a few years was the way to go. So as to not hurt the kids. I mean my hubby- I was starting to think there was no hope. Since my hubby spent pretty much no quality time with me, was not meeting any of my needs and was acting like I was the ugliest person on the planet. I was the resident "dumbass, moron, loser, fat cow", etc. Oops, this about my failings not his. I really knew how to "turn a screw" to say. I could find way to say really hurtfull things or ignore all the nice deeds he had done for the day and focus in on his one failing. In short, I was turning in to my mother, lol. I was following the example I had seen growing up. If you want your hubby to do something- nag him to death. If he hurts your feelings- let him know a 100 times. I was also depressed with life's circumstances- my health issues (now past), my son's health, my older son always seemed to be sick, my lay-off, etc.)

Not appealing behavior in the slighted.

So we both had very bad areas to work on.


Anyhow, MC focused all on me and why did I blow up once a month at hubby. (Deadline time, worked from home, child always sick at that time,add my period and hurt from the months rejections from him) I would really let him know how I hated him etc. Why could I not get my younger son to bed earlier. (My huge failing in life is to get the kids to sleep- I have always sucked at it, getting better though)


He quit marraige counseling feeling that I was not changing enough, or at all for him. He was done, eight months of MC and he stated he was done. He hated me so very much. If I was in his group of friends he would avoid ever seeing me. His hatred of me was super intense and he couldn't stand me period. I did not get the "I love you but don't love you speech". I got you are the worst person on the planet speech. The only reason he was in the house is b/c he loved his children so much and would never want to leave them. So there would have to be a cop car and papers stating he has to be removed from the house.

I was hurt like hell. Tables turned, I did not want to end this. I had trouble sleeping, I was feeling very anxious and nervous. I had an epiphany though. C'est la vie. I will try to work from the marriage but if it ends it ends. I had a time line in mind. I would give it this amount of time and then file myself. I was told about a "million", ok not a million but endless times- it's done, and I hate you. Other mean things- at first they hurt me and I really started to become more immune to it.

Within a month, I saw little small signs. I didn't cling to those signs but I saw that he was totally over me. I think most people on the planet would have walked at the point I was at.

[june72]

Looking through my journals... bad memories was trying to find examples of things he said to me. Really hurtful stuff. I have one entry titled "Happy F$%&ing V-Day". I laugh now b/c I now this year will be a good V-day.

"I don't think he ever tried to see my life's situation- I don't think he ever tried to see how it was for me. I just wan some empathy."

"Work stress killing me, Younger son sick for much of the month- up at night all the time. I feel like I have no support network, no empathy what so ever. Very lonely, worn out. Once again, I have no life at the moment due to lack of sleep, both kids sick and too much work- sucks!"



Accidentally just deleted the mean words he sad to me that I wrote done in my journal and I don't have the energy to retype them.

So I continued MC without hubby. I really begain to think she was not good b/c:
1. Now hubby was the one that was all the problems in her mind (not just me now)
2. She was not pro-marriage and suggested I start dating- I told her I would not jeopardize what was left.
3. She told me of another couple she was helping b/c the wife no longer loved the hubby and she was working out a plan where they would live together and the hubby would date. WHAT!

I mean she did have good advice here and there. Esp. about standing up for my self and calling chit when I saw it. On the whole though- I wish I have found a pro-marriage counselor and not one who did not see to care the outcome.

Anyhow, about four months later she discharged me since I was doing "Better". Stunned me but did not want to continue really anyhow with her. Conveniently, her discharge was timed with when she would have to handle the insurance paperwork, which she stated she hated to d (usually out of pocket clients)
Better? My marriage was going down the tubes. My hubby stated he hated me and was done.


Darn, little one is calling me, more later....

[june72]

Within a month, I saw little small signs. I didn't cling to those signs but I saw that he was totally over me. I think most people on the planet would have walked at the point I was at.

I didn't cling to those signs but I saw that he wasn't totally over me.

Typo

[flowmom]

I'm still learning the details of your sitch but I just wanted to comment on a few things:

caring for small children:
It is so tough! It is so hard to be at our best when we are sleep-deprived and have no time for self-care. People can tell us to take care of ourselves, blah, blah, blah, but the reality is that those people don't turn up at our door with a cooked meal when our children are wigging out at 5 PM and they aren't there in the middle of the night when the child has woken up for the fifth time. I'm sorry that your little one is so sick. That is very stressful on your whole family. I don't know if it would help you, but after some brutal winters when my kids were getting fevers and sick all the time, I started supplementing them with 1 tsp of this kind of cod liver oil in the winters. Their health dramatically improved and now they just get the odd short-lived cold.

MC:
I totally believe that MC can be worse than nothing at all with the wrong C.

1. I would never go to a MC who didn't have children. The reality of life with children is totally theoretical to non-parents...they do not really understand on a gut level what it does to individuals and marriages. I was lucky that we had a C with young children like us.

2. We also got stuck in the C focusing on one person's problems (H in my case). That was really bad because it put H on the defensive, and it left me feeling hopeless, like there was nothing I could do (when in fact I realize that there was tons I could have done and DBing would have helped me and our M a lot at that stage). A more skilful C would have created a safe place for H to own his stuff more and more.

3. Our MC wasn't solution-oriented enough. Her solution for us was to make major lifestyle changes to reduce our stress. Good advice, but not practical when we were in a marriage crisis and couldn't do the joint decision-making that that would have required. She also went back to the past a lot. That's good in IC, but in MC I don't think that that helped H take responsibility for making the changes that he needed to make to help himself and our M.

4. If I could do it all over again, I would have picked an alpha-male type C. H has respect issues with women, partly because of his mother issues. I think that he had trouble taking advice from our female MC. He needed a guy to take a dominant role and be a father figure to H, which he so desperately needs (and isn't getting from his real father).

5. I like the idea of doing a marriage weekend type thing. When things seem hopeless, devoting a big chunk of time and actually making concrete progress and getting some hope would be a huge benefit.

It's great that you have to chance to work on things with your H. I would encourage you to find something that is a better fit for your sitch. I've heard that the Gottman approach to MC is more based on strategies and works better for men.