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Originally Posted By: rppfl
Originally Posted By: Mozza
Originally Posted By: jim0987
Some advice needed please
So my W is currently shut in her room crying her eyes out and Ive no idea what I should do.
Sorry, I just saw that. I suggest: nothing. Let her know that she needs to call on you.



I have a different opinion. A few weeks ago, H told me about a conversation he'd had with someone that upset me greatly. That triggered a floodgate of emotion and I ended up a crying heap on our bathroom floor. When H came to bed and found me, he asked me gently to come to bed and helped me up. It was the beginning of the best conversation we'd had since BD.

Granted, I'm not the WAS here, but I don't see how ignoring her pain is going to help. Woman's perspective.
Sitting atop my total lack of expertise, I will dare to insist: the position (WAS/LBS) is more important than the gender here. The person running away has very strong feelings, including independence and guilt. It's one of the reasons why begging doesn't work: it goes against their desire to be left alone. Also, the example above is inverted: it's the WAS that came to the rescue, which is fine for them as it leaves them in control.

jim0987: I know it feels like a missed opportunity, but to me it's more like you didn't lose points. She has rejected your help several times in the past. She knows it's there if she wants it. In fact, it's probably good that she realizes she needs to ask for your help. You're showing that you respect her boundaries. You really think your W is not aware that you care? More likely, she wishes you cared a little less and made it easier on you.

Insert legal disclaimer with rejection of liability! Good luck.


M39 D6 D3 (at S)
S 2014-09
D 2016-09

"You can't start a fire sitting around, crying over a broken heart" - Bruce Springsteen.
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I told her I was here if she needed anything and left it at that.

my internal what does this mean has gone a bit haywire though
- is it guilt because something happened with OM
- is it fear over her choices
- did something go wrong at her mortgage appointment
- is there an issue she is scared to bring up with me
- is it remorse about what is happening
- is it that she has realised shes made a horrible mistake but doesnt know how to fix it
- it it just sadness that she wont have the kids half the week

no way for me to know and it doesnt do me any good to think about it


Both mid 30s, 2 young kids
BD 7sep14
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D paperwork in progress
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Sorry to hijack. I just got dropped a big bomb and I am FREAKING OUT. Please help!!


M:35 W 31
D's:6, 4 & 2
T:9 M:7
ILYBNILWY- Mar/14
DP Served Dec.17/14

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CAUTION - EPIC LENGTH POST

So I have no idea if it’s helpful for me or anyone reading but I’ve decided to go for a bit of amateur psychology and guesswork to try and explain where I think I am in terms of how I got here and what is going on based mostly on reflections from the last month or so.

So background:
Me - miserable childhood, my parents hated each other and rather than be at home it meant my Dad was anywhere but. Even when he was at home he always had something better to do. The only memory I have of doing anything (not just being present) with my dad is fixing the roof one stormy night when I was about 12. this gave me a whole load of issues about not being worth the attention and feeling unloved - led to me developing a good case of avoidant 'I’m the worst' Nice Guy syndrome with a major trigger being when I’m made to wait. My LL is quality time but I give Gifts (what I learnt as a kid - had stuff but no attention)

Prior to M I had a relationship which lasted 9 years which I ended while engaged. I had always been reluctant to get engaged and it never felt right to me. I didn’t want to get married when I had doubts like that. This may well be my own issues which I ran away from and if I’m honest I ran to my current W though she said no for several months afterwards.

W - Miserable childhood, definite issues with her dad but not really clear exactly what they were. Parents were happily married but both left marriages to get together (affairs and second marriages are common in her family). As far as I can tell she had a lot of former BFs/partners but 3 serious prior to me. The first physically abused her; the second abandoned her and took all of her stuff leaving her with a big pile of debt, and the third she left because he always prioritised his brother. None of these lasted more than two years. Her LL is somewhere between acts of service and words of affirmation

Rough Chronology of our relationship
worked together for a year (I was her boss for about 6 months of this) and always got on really well - very similar sense of humour, attitude to life etc. after I broke up with my ex I decided to try and pursue a relationship with my W - she said no though we stayed really good friends. She started been really open about her dating to try and put me off and even said at one point 'I slept with him to avoid having a relationship with you' - we got together about a week later.

Things were good for about a year though she still had issues about the way we got together and because my work bought me into regular contact with my ex we agreed I should change jobs but that meant moving cross country (about 100 miles). changed jobs and moved she was homesick for a while and had a real issue about being in a rented house but over the next year things got really good (I helped her achieve her ambition of running a marathon by sorting out training programmes etc. and then cycling alongside) .

She got pregnant and then at about 13 weeks we thought she was having a miscarriage and were both devastated. The baby was ok (now D3) but it had a big impact on my wife - Drs said no running, no exercise and no sex. She was stressed by this.

After D3 was born my W felt really homesick as we had no local support network. Her only support was me and I had a full time job. She cried a lot, pretty much every day. She had hoped her mum would come up more but her dad had severe Parkinson’s and so couldn’t travel which meant she was really alone. She was desperate to move home but I said we couldn’t because we wouldn’t have jobs (my job there is one per county so going back would end my career). During this time I was very much a distant consideration and felt quite rejected. I tried to reassure myself it was just a new parent thing but I expect some NG behaviour started coming out.

As a result of her hen night I felt really rejected - she had made an effort for someone else but not me. I know now she was making the effort for her because she just wanted to reconnect with who she was pre motherhood. but felt threatened and had a bit of a meltdown. I asked her lots of questions (hounded her over several weeks) about her Xs as I was trying to work out why I wasn’t worth the effort, she took that as me criticising her past and thought I was calling her a 'cheap
whore' (I wasn’t I was too consumed by my own sense of inadequacy but that’s not how she saw it). Things were rough for a while.

At the same time she had to go back to work although she didn’t want to and I had to adjust my hours to have a day a week childcare. Things were just getting on a more even keel when her dad died. I've told this story previously but let’s just say she took it incredibly hard and I handled it spectacularly badly. She shut me out and somewhere along the way decided that she couldn’t cry in front of me - I didn’t know what to do when she did but that was never true.

Anyways from there we just had a depressed spouse vs. Avoidant NG negative cycle for 2 and a bit years until BD. Throughout this time I was desperate for quality time but she wouldn’t let anyone other than her Mum babysit - but because we only saw her once a month my W wanted to spend that time with her mum. Between that and being shattered from full time work and two small children there was no quality time worsening my NG tendencies into at times full blown passive/aggressive behaviour. My W on the other hand just got increasingly critical and
Flat out ignored me on occasion, her disrespect was increasingly obvious and she started finding excuses to tell me my opinion was wrong. Our sex life remained poor.

I kept buying lots of little gifts to try and show I love her and she kept doing acts of service to show me but they just didn’t work. At no stage did either of us properly try and have a grown up conversation about this.

She had been unhappy for so long and I was pushing her away. she had had her head turned by someone at work and I think I must have picked up she was even more distant which is why I forced the issue in an incredible destructive way and she said she wanted to end the marriage.

Post BD
Me - I spent about three weeks in beg and plead and generally being really distraught. Couldn’t really stop crying and did everything wrong. My 'I’m the worst' meant I swung from it can’t be me (to scared to admit it) to it was 100% and I was awful. She called me an emotional bully and I agreed with her - I understood how she felt and felt even worse (see some of my prior posts).

The big turnaround for me in this seems to have come from a combination of reading NMMNG and 5LL as well as a couple of IC sessions where we explored the abandonment stuff from my childhood. it really put a few bits of the puzzle together and I started to realise that I was loved as a kid just not in the way I wanted to be and that a lot of the issues that existed in my marriage is because I was still behaving like that child (sulking, passive/aggressive etc.) rather than assertively addressing issues in a constructive way. Now I’ve got to work through some of this stuff but it really feels like a big weight has been lifted of my shoulder.

Her (all mindreading now)
She feels guilty about the impact this will have on our kids and that she is pursuing someone else and so she is revising history to convince herself that she had no choice. She has always had a fierce independent streak and hates to feel trapped (big emotional scar from first relationship) so right now she is thrashing against having to stay here. I think she genuinely believes that she has just been a victim of emotional abuse for the last few years and I have bullied her. She also feels that there is no hope for happiness by staying with me in part because she no longer feels any attraction for me, certainly not of the new relationship kind.

She has told people that she has shed no tears for me and that it’s a relief to be free of me, that I’m a liar and manipulator. The gifts I bought her she has decided were me being controlling. She has also told them that she is excited about dating because there is someone out there for her. She has also told her friends and family that I have prevented her from seeing them - which just isn’t true (we see her mum one weekend a month and haven’t had a holiday in 4 years without her mum coming as well). She is burning bridges because she wants to make sure that the circumstances make it impossible for her to go back on her decision (this is normal for her)

She has also convinced herself that it’s not an affair because she told me she doesn’t want to stay with me a week before she first slept with OM.

At its core I think she’s afraid that she’s wasting her life and that she’s been unhappy for so long she needs to change something and that something is me. I think she is also afraid about the financial implications and the impact it will have on our kids. I also think that she might be afraid to face her own part of this - it’s hurt me to face mine but I've been forced to, she hasn’t had that yet (or if she has she is handling it better than I have).

I also think the support she has is very pro-divorce because they have all chosen or are currently choosing that path.

So the future......
It’s a simple case of DB'g I guess - GAL, improve myself, deal with my issues and make myself the kind of person that I should be. I’m going to build a much better relationship with my dad and I’m changing my attitude to each day. I've put together a little paragraph which I read every morning to remind me to approach the day in the right way – it helps catch negative thoughts.

a lot of the time I’m feeling good that and more confident in who I am and who I want to be, then I get bought back to earth in sadness over the ending of my M and the impact this has (kids make this much harder). Anger over the way she is behaving toward OM and the contempt she has for me.

As for the relationship - I have no idea if there is any way to get through to my wife and in reality if there is genuinely no attraction and no love there then there is anything to get through to. I also don’t know where my limit is - how much bridge burning can I withstand? Either way the more I look at it the more I think she’s had a really rough ride in life and she just keeps on going. I continue to be very proud of her despite the choices she is making.

If only there was a way to get her to give us a chance.

If you've read all that well done and thank you.

If you have any thoughts or observations I’d gladly welcome them


Both mid 30s, 2 young kids
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D paperwork in progress
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Desperately fighting the urge to try and rationalise with my W this morning


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So on reflection litt night she was upset when she got in.

I asked her what was wrong and if there was anything I can do. Offered some support and hug. She said she just wants to be left alone so I did and played with the kids but this kind of excluded her. This is just more of the same from our relationship that went wrong.

I let her know I was there if she needed me (too many times I think) But left her too it.

In hindsight I think I should have remembered her LL is words of affirmation and maybe said something like 'I know this is hard for you as well so its OK to be upset. Your showing a lot of strength to be as together as you have been'

Thoughts? Am I way off?


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Feel like I really missed an opportunity to show change. Or more the point it shows I've changed less than I thought.


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BD 7sep14
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D paperwork in progress
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You can't be there for someone that doesn't want you to be there for them. And are you really there for them or because it will make you feel good about you and your R? Not flaming but a serious question. It's something I have definitely struggled with.


M40 XW35
M11 T15
S9 D5
Bomb 6/3/14
Papers del 10/3/14
D final 12/5/14

I wish I could love you and make you believe it
'Cause that's all you ever wanted
From me

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Its been an issue for us for a long while. I can see her hurting and I want to help but I've not managed to figure out what I can do to help.

When we first got together she would open up and we would talk for hours but that was minor stuff. once her dad died I've never got beyond her wall of defences - I wonder whether I should have been more determined rather than backing away when she asked for space.


Both mid 30s, 2 young kids
BD 7sep14
XW moved on long ago, now living with OM1
D paperwork in progress
Joined: Sep 2014
Posts: 1,720
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Still kicking myself for missing an opportunity to close some emotional distance. I just did more of the same

I needed to be more confident, assertive and compassionate. Basically how I was when we first got together which would have meant sitting next to her and telling her 'its ok, let it out'


Last edited by jim0987; 10/23/14 11:18 AM.

Both mid 30s, 2 young kids
BD 7sep14
XW moved on long ago, now living with OM1
D paperwork in progress
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