She seems so depressed. Sometimes I wonder if she needs my help. Maybe she thinks she is depressed about our M but it is really depression due to adjusting to moving with 3 small kids away from family. I want to be there for her. I don’t want to turn my back if she is in need. I really don’t know what do be doing. She seems so down around me, but even around friends and our kids her happiness seems fake or forced, like she is trying hard.
Sometimes DB’g feels passive-aggressive. I still feel that pull to her, even when she doesn’t say hello goodbye or show me any affection. Maybe we are in some affection standoff and I need to somehow solve the puzzle.
Then I think for awhile like this and go on and on and realize relationships shouldn’t be so hard. It is just so frustrating to feel like if we worked on our R we could get through this tough parenting phase and come out stronger. 15 years together and she can’t tell me what’s wrong... after the first 13 years were so good (at least for me). Why not go to counseling and just air it all out and see if we can’t fix things? Instead of harboring resentment. I didn’t cheat, we had a few fights, I really don’t understand what is going on... sigh...
She seems so depressed. Sometimes I wonder if she needs my help. Maybe she thinks she is depressed about our M but it is really depression due to adjusting to moving with 3 small kids away from family. I want to be there for her. I don’t want to turn my back if she is in need. I really don’t know what do be doing. She seems so down around me, but even around friends and our kids her happiness seems fake or forced, like she is trying hard.
Sometimes DB’g feels passive-aggressive. I still feel that pull to her, even when she doesn’t say hello goodbye or show me any affection. Maybe we are in some affection standoff and I need to somehow solve the puzzle.
Then I think for awhile like this and go on and on and realize relationships shouldn’t be so hard. It is just so frustrating to feel like if we worked on our R we could get through this tough parenting phase and come out stronger. 15 years together and she can’t tell me what’s wrong... after the first 13 years were so good (at least for me). Why not go to counseling and just air it all out and see if we can’t fix things? Instead of harboring resentment. I didn’t cheat, we had a few fights, I really don’t understand what is going on... sigh...
I know how you're thinking and feeling. I did the same thing and still do sometimes with W - she is still in a depressed state since 8 months ago. I tried many times pre-DB and pre-understanding asking what was wrong, offering to go to MC or IC, asking to talk about M, etc etc. All of it I now know was pressure. It was perceived that way from W view, and not in the being helpful way I was viewing it.
The trick from what I can tell is to somehow detach lovingly. this is what I'm working on. To show you're still there for her without expectations but also that you wont be around to take all the projected blame when that time comes
Keep hanging in there - don't forget to focus on you.
Thanks. Detaching lovingly with no expectations is hard. I find myself detaching with a hint of passive aggression and “I’m starting to move on with my life.” That balance point is tricky.
My W and I have been together since I was 19 and I don't think we both matured as two separate independent individuals would have. I mean, we had and hadn't. In the beginning, I could not lose the girl. When I was that 19 year old, I vividly remember going over to my best friend's house and she would drive by his house and ask if I was there since she was looking for me and I would tell him not to tell her I was there. I kept her chasing and I wanted some time to hang with my boys.
Back then I had my own life and slowly invited her into my world where she met my friends, did the things I did, found out what I liked.. I'm sure you guys have been there. What can we do now to bring back this excitement and thrill of living life for ourselves and to share that with those around us?
I'm here alone in my apartment with my kids in the big dream house with their mom and she facetimed me earlier with a grim face because she couldn't park the car in the garage right and almost hit the side column. She chose the style of the garage door and is now not liking what she chose. Her driving is bad.. The point of this is that I am choosing to be happy with less, much less. I am alone right now but not lonely. My boys are with their mom, safe and happy. I do miss them and love them, that is always going to be constant. My W will have her days and be sad or upset.
I talk about the past because I used to think a certain way, that we were supposed to be there for one another to help the other person through thick and thin. We were to be the crutch for one another, I thought this was what love is. She falls down, I pick her up. And vice versa. I no longer have this expectation. I am free and so is she. I became my own burden and in doing so, I became her burden as well. We want partners we want to lift up but not have to carry. This is just generally speaking. I do feel some type of way if there is something catastrophic that happened I think it's a moral duty to stand by your partner when they can no longer take care of themselves physically or if something happened like an accident. I hear many stories of men having accidents and got hurt and somewhere down the road, the W bounced. Now I don't know if this lead to losing a job etc, but it shakes things up and for men who don't usually talk or show the W everything is okay, they start to feel a certain way.
Unchien, its hard to let go of what we want. We want to fix it on our timeline because we are the ones hurting. Your W most likely was hurting far longer and somewhere along the line things got too complicated. Maybe you didn't pick up on the signs or didn't think they were real or that important. Maybe your W held it in to keep the peace. So are we going to blame her and say its her fault for holding it in, if that was the case? I had to get used to the idea that my W did not want any help because she felt like I was being controlling, it was because of what I wanted, it was always me, me, me...
You can still be there, be the rock. Don't get caught up in the emotional turmoil. Empathize with your W, you can show her you still care, respect her boundaries and yours and be the man. Sometimes they need to figure it out on their own. We can not save them. If she wants out, you respect her wishes.
I've had months of being teary eyed and crying because I was remorseful and realized what I was doing wrong. I am in the process of correcting my behavior. I am living in the moment, and I embrace the good with the bad.
At first I had to gain control of my emotions. I too wanted to work on not being passive aggressive. I remember from months ago when AS told me I was being PA or when Steve told me I wasn't detaching correctly. I remember being at work and using thought stopping a lot to make it through the day. I would wake up and say a little prayer on how I wanted to be and named top things that would not get me down. W was always one of those things I said I would not let get me down. Sometimes they were my own behaviors. Wanting to control the situation became wanting to show W I heard her, and I could understand, although maybe I didn't agree. Some things I would agree on like if she wasn't happy and wanted out, I agreed. I too wouldn't want to be with someone who didn't want to be with me. Not said with malice.
Be patient with yourself, shift more focus on yourself, create short term goals and long term. GAL and live healthy in all aspects. Also, realize there is no magic bullet. Your reality may sink in a little better once you realize there is no magic bullet so you won't go chasing rainbows and unicorns, but do some real work for improvement.
Open mind unchien.
H 49 , W 47 T 23, M 17 S11, S5 BD: 7/18 IHS: 7/18 - 3/19 Physically Separated: 3/19-4/19 Piecing: 4/19 - Current
Adam you have no idea how much you just help me today with your perspective. With creating the balance between passive aggressiveness, letting go, detaching and empathy
Unchien, its hard to let go of what we want. We want to fix it on our timeline because we are the ones hurting. Your W most likely was hurting far longer and somewhere along the line things got too complicated. Maybe you didn't pick up on the signs or didn't think they were real or that important. Maybe your W held it in to keep the peace. So are we going to blame her and say its her fault for holding it in, if that was the case? I had to get used to the idea that my W did not want any help because she felt like I was being controlling, it was because of what I wanted, it was always me, me, me...
You can still be there, be the rock. Don't get caught up in the emotional turmoil. Empathize with your W, you can show her you still care, respect her boundaries and yours and be the man. Sometimes they need to figure it out on their own. We can not save them. If she wants out, you respect her wishes.
Thank you Adam. It is hard to let go. I don't blame her for holding it in. I don't blame her if she is depressed. I don't blame her if she wants to walk away. I don't blame her if what I have done is too much for her and she can never view me the same way again.
I struggle with how to show her I care, but also respect her boundaries. I feel like respecting her at this point is letting her go. Will she interpret this as me giving up? I do try to listen and validate when we talk, which is mostly about the kids and her day. I catch myself thinking about changing the subject, and I stop and listen, and give her eye contact, and ask follow-up questions, and avoid problem-solving.
She has this simmering resentment - this morning I took a video at my son's school and the angle was kind of lousy, and she responded with a passive aggressive message, not directly saying it was a lousy angle, but implying it. It's just another gut punch - it's not as if I TRIED to make a lousy video. I said Sorry. I'm not sure I should have - of course I could have taken a better video, but I tried - and saying Sorry feeds into her resentment.
I'm afraid to give her space. I'm afraid it will be interpreted that I don't care. I'm afraid that she is depressed and I need to reach out and be there in some way for her.
I'm afraid to reach out. I'm afraid of her resentment and anger. I'm afraid of screwing up, or of accelerating this process, because right now I have the gift of time.
Like so many people here, I came her hoping to "bust" my divorce. But really DB'g is about working on yourself and letting go. The odds are just incredibly low that things turn around for our M. That being said, this is what I need. I've been going to IC and struggling with emotions, and I find the DB techniques much more useful than IC. Just working on focusing on myself, step by step.
Originally Posted by Adam04
I've had months of being teary eyed and crying because I was remorseful and realized what I was doing wrong. I am in the process of correcting my behavior. I am living in the moment, and I embrace the good with the bad.
I'm curious what you did wrong? For a long time I blamed myself 100% for things falling apart. Lately I realize it's 50/50. My need for physical intimacy in our relationship does not require apologizing. My frustration and anger and passive aggressive behavior when we could not work things out does require apologizing. I don't apologize for feeling like W stopped paying attention to me, but I do apologize for my emotional histrionics (like pulling the car over on the side of the road) in reaction.
I understand things I did wrong. I also feel like there is a lot I don't understand. Even in our first go-round in MC, I felt like the things she pointed out (housework especially) were not REALLY the root cause. Because I made honest efforts and things got worse.
I don't know... I'm not 100% to blame. Sometimes I feel angry that some of my needs were ignored too.
What sort of behavioral changes are you making? I struggle to identify concrete steps I can take, because I don't feel like at the moment I do incredibly problematic things.
I am REALLY fighting the urge to reach out to her and say "I'm concerned about you, you seem very sad. I care about you and I'm here for you."
Originally Posted by Adam04
At first I had to gain control of my emotions. I too wanted to work on not being passive aggressive. I remember from months ago when AS told me I was being PA or when Steve told me I wasn't detaching correctly. I remember being at work and using thought stopping a lot to make it through the day. I would wake up and say a little prayer on how I wanted to be and named top things that would not get me down. W was always one of those things I said I would not let get me down. Sometimes they were my own behaviors. Wanting to control the situation became wanting to show W I heard her, and I could understand, although maybe I didn't agree. Some things I would agree on like if she wasn't happy and wanted out, I agreed. I too wouldn't want to be with someone who didn't want to be with me. Not said with malice.
Be patient with yourself, shift more focus on yourself, create short term goals and long term. GAL and live healthy in all aspects. Also, realize there is no magic bullet. Your reality may sink in a little better once you realize there is no magic bullet so you won't go chasing rainbows and unicorns, but do some real work for improvement.
Open mind unchien.
I don't find myself being super PA. I just FEEL like giving distance and space itself is PA. Last night I said, "I'm going to the other room to exercise" and went and did it. Was that PA? It felt like it to me.
I do fight the urge to try to control the situation. Letting go feels like not caring. Or maybe it feels good to be less co-dependent. Maybe I'm in a bad M and for my own health this will be for the best. I don't know. I love my W, but the woman I see is not the W I once knew.
I'm starting to doubt whether I even want to stay in this M. Is this normal? Do these feelings come and go?
Does it really matter why she is checking out? - MLC - Adjustment disorder w/depression or anxiety due to our move w/3 little kids - Her thinking I have a personality disorder *** - Affair - Not feeling loved or appreciated?
*** The most likely one
When someone doesn't love you, isn't there for you, ignores you, doesn't validate you... what's the point? When they respond to you with indifference, or resentment, what is the value? Am I supposed to interpret these moments as signs I need to change, or just evidence that the R is over? Yes, I can analyze my role in the deterioration of our R, but honestly I do resent her lack of awareness of her contributions. I do feel like I have worked harder to identify problems than she has. What am I getting out of this? Even if the BD never comes, I cannot endure this much longer. I don't apologize for my need to feel loved and appreciated in a R.
Can anyone else here relate? Do you guys DB even when you know the M is over, DB just for its own sake to improve yourself? Or should I be mixing in something other than DB also?
Sorry for the incoherent rambling... so many thoughts swirling around in my head.
If my wife thinks I'm just a bad person, or I have some mental disorder that she cannot tolerate, whether or not those things are true, DB'g is *not* going to change her mind.
In which case, this is all about healing myself, right?
You are kinda all over the board right now and being new I think your under the impression that there is a magic bullet that is going to save your marriage. Unfortunately it doesn’t work that way.
Just from reading your last couple posts I can tell your number one problem is your wife doesn’t respect you. If she doesn’t respect you she will not love you in the way your looking from your wife.
You send her a photo and she criticizes the angle. You don’t apologize and she doesn’t get pictures anymore. No one will ever say or do anything to you that you don’t allow them to.
Deep breaths, work on yourself and command respect.
I'm thinking a lot about these things too, and have thought about them for quite a while. With the suddenness of my situation, I determined W's sudden change of heart within a 2 week period last year was at least in some part my fault, some part hers. It was also my depressed state due to a work situation I felt I had no control over, and also her entering into a MLC-like state.
I would suggest to read the MLC resources here. All of them. They have helped me get a handle on what I'm dealing with and how to go about applying it IRL. Maybe not everything will apply, but it might help you begin to see an MLCers viewpoint, how they think, what their perspective is. That was what was missing for me - once I saw it (kind of) from W's angle, I let go of the outcome and things calmed down (for me)
