I am questioning my sanity at this time. My 30 year relationship/marriage with my best friend and wife began to deteriorate about 3 1/2 years ago after both of our careers ended due to a business sale and my wife having a full hysterectomy a year prior. She began pulling away from the family of 3 sons, now ages 17, 22 & 25. The older 2 moved out about 4 years ago as well. I searched for self and began a new relationship with God. Trying to get my career back on track has been a low point. When I had noticed her pulling further away, reduction of house work, emotional engagement with the family. After a concert we attended in 6 of 2016 she began to say odd things I have never heard from her. There was some alcohol involved, not to much. Her words scared me, they were dark. I gained the courage and asked her why the distance in 8/2016. She said that she had been faking her love for me. Our love & connection had been one to script a movie from. Not more than two months before her best friend had told her that after watching us at a HS reunion of their's that we where the happiest married couple she had ever seen. We worked on the marriage with a christian workshop, The Weekend to Remember. We began taking walks, riding bikes, more time together doing home improvements, we cuddled and touched each other more than we had at the beginning of our relationship. I could sense that her commitment was half at best. I pushed in and she pulled back. I attempted to tear down all of my emotional barriers and opened up to her like I never had. I believe I overwhelmed her with my emotional load.
Her drive to reconnect with her youth, concerts, constant social media postings, appearance fixation, cursing, turn away from God and overall dislike for me grew. I was hurt by her pulling away, criticizing me, she told me to "get a life". In Sept of 18 we had an argument. She accused me of untrue, and some distorted but true things from as far back as our early 20's. I am not perfect and did do hurtful things over our relationship. The hurtful actions and words went both ways. I have learned that holding onto the hurt me is unhealthy. Forgiveness allows me to be free of resentment to prior pain. I wrote her an apology letter that did nothing to help.
She became a different person. She said: "I love you but am not in love with you, I gave my whole life to raising children its now time for me, they are grown @ss men and can handle their own lives". Our sons and I could see this change is her actions, facial appearance, eyes and verbiage. In late Nov of 18 she moved out with her 70 yr old mother into a rental house 20 min away from our home. Her mother said too that she was acting like she did in high school. Her new residence is decorated with pictures of rock and movie stars from her youth. Her phone became her most important possession, guarded it with her life. Our youngest son needs her the most. He has always been "high strung" and she had a calming aspect to parenting that worked for him. 2 weeks after she moved out he totaled his car and was nearly killed. This last year of HS was dismal for him. He failed most of his classes.
She had a terrible childhood, parents divorced twice from each other, her dad was physically and emotionally abusive to her, her mom & her brother. Her mom was unfortunately not able to provide well for them. They moved nearly every year and did not have much. In HS she was on her own most of time and was a wild child. When we met at the age of 21, we both needed what the other had to offer: strength/stability-spontaneity/spirituality.
We have maintained a fair amount of contact after she left. She had been having panic attacks, loss of sleep. She had said that if she would have stayed in our home she would have had a nervous breakdown. A few months later an eye issue led her to an MRI for a possible MS diagnosis. Fortunately it was negative however she still had most all of the other symptoms. 2 months later she told me of a possible blood thinning problem. She went to Florida with 2 of her life long, divorced girlfriends for a weekend. She drunk called our oldest son and got a Margaritaville tattoo while there. The tattooist mentioned the blood tinning issue. She refuses to go back to the doctor.
I have been working on self improvement and am making great progress. I began to strengthen myself, no pushing or pleading with her. The study of the Enneagram provided me insight as to my personality and why I do the things I do. My relationship with all 3 of our sons continues to grow stronger each day. Our youngest and I have made monumental strides in our relationship and are at the best we have ever been.
My wife's mother has had a hard life and lived alone most of it. The time that they have had together has been great for both of them. They are doing most things together and my mother in law is coming out of her shell.
I began to offer her invitations to do things with me. We had some nice time together, not discussing the relationship. After hosting an engagement party she said she was proud of me. One evening, 3 weeks ago with our 22 yr old son and his fiancee, she gave me a real kiss before she left and called the next morning to tell me she had a great time. A week later she refused my 2 invitations, long delayed text responses and no phone calls. She took a part time job as a bartender at that time, supporting 2 households is hurting us financially. She was a bartender/waitress when we originally met. In the last week she did call me out of the blue. We had a fun conversation. She came over to spend time with our youngest son. She was playful with me, stayed an hour plus after our son left with friends. We had good conversation listened to music on her phone. I was allowed to hold her phone to watch music videos. She said that she was tired of working all the time, cutting the grass, cleaning and work at her place. She then said that she was at peace 10 min later. I have not seen these verbal contradictions before. When she left she said that I was a great father then turned back to me and said she loved me. I said I love you too.
She had a type of awakening 2 months ago and admitted to being in a crisis. She represented the Sep 2018 to February 2019 as being "crazy town". Her previous personality began to return at times. Our oldest son told her in a harsh manor, 2 months ago that he was done with her after her lack of real contact with him and her adolescent behavior. The middle son told her of his hurt a week ago with a better delivery. He also explained to her that our youngest is hurting most of all. My wife had been the best mom ever and had a deep, honest, open connection with all 3 sons. Our oldest son and her had been so close. His birthday was a few days ago. She sent a card with me to give him. Our 2 other sons and drove an hour to visit him & celebrate his b'day. The idea of her not being there by choice hurt all of us.
When we where dating many years ago she left me for 3 months. I moved on and she magically appeared one night and asked to come back. I believe that she is in another life transition at this time as she was then. My heart is telling me to stop trying, no more invitations, respond only to her contact and keep improving myself. My love is waning, resentment and anger over this emotional torture has begun. I hurts when she does not accept an invitation for time together, her love language is quality time and non sexual touch. I am believing that my pulling away will help me to gain more strength to move on if that is the eventual outcome. I have been a consistent stander of our relationship and she knows that I have loved her tremendously. I have seen progress with what I have been doing however it is wearing me out. I have read a lot of information that informs me to drop the emotional rope. I have been praying for his direction. After all this time, do I continue trying to connect or pull back?
Thoughts?
Last edited by job; 06/17/1907:39 PM. Reason: edited language
Keep this to yourself. DO NOT share this book or this site at all with your spouse. It is your playbook and not to be shared with the "opposing" team.
It is important to clear the search/browsing history from your computer on a daily basis to prevent the possibility for your WAS to stumble on the DB site and discover your posts here on DB. Erasing the search history will protect your posts and you as well.
Sorry you are here but you will meet some wonderful people here and get some great advice.
You may be on moderation now, post in small frequent replies and stay on this thread until you reach 100 posts (for your thread, you can also post on other peoples threads to give support)
I have read a good deal of books on the subject and can give you some suggestions when you are ready.
Take the parts of this advice that you need and don't worry if I have repeated something that you have already done.
I will give you a bunch of homework assignments to read.
This POST is under reconstruction and we will be working on this as time goes by, this is the most current version.
Now you have all the tools to read. Let us know how your doing and if you have any questions.
I suggest that you read the entire thread in the resources. You can also pick out some people and read their whole story.
Depression is the key to the whole thing and it is always present!
Believe none of what he/she says and 50% of what he/she does.
I would not ask him/her anything unless you can have no expectations. Sometimes asking them questions will be thought of as pressure. You do not want to do anything that can be thought of by your H/W as controlling or pressure.
Lets not worry about him/her. Lets work on you! Start your homework assignments. Something to DO while you are on moderation. GAL. Eat, sleep, exercise and take a deep breath. In general take care of your self first.
Detach the single most important thing to DO.
Your H/W has given you a gift THE GIFT OF TIME use it wisely
Your wife is definitely in crisis and I would leave her alone as much as possible. The more you push, the more she will pull away. Contact her only if it is something important. Just as she did many years ago, i.e., walked away and when she saw that you had moved on, she came back, it could happen again. Your wife needs to find herself and actually grow up.
Yes, she's had a lot of childhood trauma that has most likely been stuffed down since her childhood and now, it's bubbling to the top and needs to burst forth and she needs to accept that there were things that she cannot change nor were her fault.
Several things...keep your expectations at zero at all times. Yes, you are setting yourself up for disappointment, anger and resentment when she doesn't accept your invitations. So, step back a bit and do not invite her to a lot of things. Allow her to come to you sometimes. You are doing the dance of the distancer/pursuer. You are doing most of the heavy pursuing and you need to step back. Like I pointed out in the first paragraph, the more you push, the more she's going to pull away.
Keep the focus on you and your children. Dig out that old list of things to do that have been stuffed in a drawer and start doing them. Find new things to do and when she sees that you are busy living your life, she may very well become curious and begin to ask you questions and want to do things w/you.
Sit quietly, the answers will reveal themselves when you least expect them to. The past is gone, the present is a gift and you need to focus on today, allow the future to reveal itself when it is ready.
Your heart is acting as your brain as well here. Pull back, give minimal contact and be there for the children.
She may have some insight if there is admittance of a crisis. BUT, little bits of clarity here and there are common and short lived. She has to endure this beast without your help. It is hard, but any bit of sympathy or help you offer will be shot down. She may come to you with her hand(s) out, but it is only in her self interest while in crisis.
It may feel good to send an "I miss you" text to her. But as days go by without any response it will only eat at you. Have no expectations and make her come to you if that is what is desired. It is hard, but doable.
My redneck brother in law gave me excellent advice...."Be the Marlboro Man at the end of the bar. He's not approaching chicks, they're approaching HIM." It's on a deeper level than meeting someone new. Its metaphorical for GAL, doing for yourself and keeping quiet.
Thank you for your responses. She is distancing again and I am not pursuing. She did come over to visit our son last week and again said that she loved me when she left. She also admitted to being very selfish after she opened up about our oldest son and her's strained relationship. This was the first time in a year that she told me of hurt on her part.
There has been no anger from me in 7 months and little before that. Honestly we rarely ever had words and never called each other names in our long relationship. I now respond if needed otherwise I listen to her talk without any negative energy.
From my story above, do you believe the bomb drop was in 2017 when she said she was faking her love and began her fall into her teenage years or was it in 9/2018 when she went totally "Crazy Town"?
I believe that she is possible ending Replay or in Depression/Withdraw. Thoughts?
I think she was a very slow one to enter the crisis because she may have been on the outer edge of the crisis for quite some time and didn't begin to fully enter it until 2016.
What makes you think that replay is ending? From your previous description, she still sounds like she's in a bit of replay and ensuring that you are still out there. Sure, she may have done some activities w/you, but it doesn't sound like she's ready to let the crisis life go. She hasn't fully withdrawn from you, the kids or the things that she was/is interested in. The deep, dark depression isn't a pretty sight and your description doesn't give me any indication that she's fully experienced withdrawal.
Just my two cents.
Sit quietly, the answers will reveal themselves when you least expect them to. The past is gone, the present is a gift and you need to focus on today, allow the future to reveal itself when it is ready.
Im not really schooled with the stages of the crises I have read they may go back and forth so you may see touch and gos
and we as a hurting LBS will read into their confused signals
but unless you see her showing real signs of wanting to reconcile, like seeing a therapist, wanting to move home, staying in instead of playing with D friends reconnecting as a good parent, showing signs of responsible adult behavior- I would keep moving forward and away put all your energy to help your sons- and heal yourself and continue to keep the focus on you
You mentioned many years back she came back when you moved on- maybe she needs to see you moving on lovingly
Im so sorry for your youngest son We have to become 2 parents explain to them it is not their fault sometimes people i life get "sick" mentally, emotionally, and MLC she still loves them but she is trying to figure out her unresolved childhood wounds this takes many years and only a chosen few will R
Our children can get through this we have to be the strong parent let them see you lovingly letting her go and supporting their needs become stronger than we are and no negative talk about their mother
married 14 years H 42 bomb 2/07 IDLYA D final 3 /09 M ow D ow
Thank you. My thoughts are drawn from a few things. Her social media postings have declined, she is to my knowledge not out running with her friends as much or at all. She is spending more time with her mom, our middle son told me that she is more herself than not herself as she had been. She had a very intense emotional decline in March that lasted for about 10 days. She went from I love you but am not in love with you in 9/18 to saying I love you 2 weeks ago.
When she told me of her hurt with our oldest son she said that on his birthday, 6/15/19 she was in intense pain, did 4 shots of tequila and cried all night.
She is responding to humorous text messages from me. I send about 2-3 a week. I worry that the connection that we had maintained while separated will further decline if I stop all non-needed contact. We did have a very good relationship until 3 years ago. Even up to 9 of 18 we held hands where ever we went, even while driving.
You do what works and toss out the things that don't work. It doesn't hurt to text her once in a while to see how she responds.
She may slowly calming down a bit, but she's still in replay/depression and maybe withdrawal. You have to remember, it's not one step by step, they can have several stages going on at the same time, i.e., the stages are not linear. So until she's actually doing some of the things that Peace mentioned more frequently, I would still keep the focus on you and give her the space she requires.
Please keep in mind that the stages and time frames are just a guide....no two people are alike and each one can do similar things, but yet be different in other areas.
Keep the focus on you and your kids.
Sit quietly, the answers will reveal themselves when you least expect them to. The past is gone, the present is a gift and you need to focus on today, allow the future to reveal itself when it is ready.
We spent 4 hours together last evening going to and fro our son's HS soccer game. She was calm, nice and considerate. Their was good conversation, laughter and playfulness. We have made some progress in paying off some bills together. She is more frugal with money.
She told me that she went to the doctor and is getting blood work done today. I believe this to be a positive step for her to know what may or may not be wrong medically. She called me this morning in the waiting room prior to getting her blood drawn. I believe she is somewhat fearful. Providing her peace, understanding and being gentle is my focus.
We have plans for Sunday with most of our family. Our oldest son and her will see each other for the fist time in 2 months. I invited her to spent time together with our sons over the 4th. Some good progress.
