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Thank you for your words, Young at Heart. She already started saying things like "You look good...I see that you are getting big". She even touched my chest and arms. She also said things like "I don't know if I have made a good decision by moving out of here...I have started to question my decisions lately...". Then she added "All of those hurtful things that I said to you I only said it out of anger, I didnt really mean it..." But then she brings back the same old story and start arguing and I just listen.

I had to move out from our old place because, since she left, I got stuck paying for a very expensive apartment. In fact, after paying all the bills, I had a cushion of $25 per month!! So I moved out to a cheaper apartment.

She is a great person, but I think I cannot understand how she felt about this whole situation. Maybe I failed to protect her heart from the circumstances. Maybe I am too immature for a lifetime commitment. I don't know yet. One thing is for sure; I love her with all of my heart.

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Originally Posted By: justbob

I am wondering has she ever had Individual Counseling - for the mental flotsam (PTSD possibly) that all childhood abuse leaves?


Hello Bob. Yes, as far as I know, she received help. In fact, when we started dating around 2 years ago, she was attending her therapies every Tuesdays. But now that you mention this, she stopped attending her therapy because "the therapies were about to end", so there was no purpose to keep going that far (the therapy center was around 40 mins away). The therapist focused on Coping Skills and other areas that dealt with behavioral issues.

As a matter of fact, I took individual therapy for the issues that I believe led us to our current situation, which are anger (for example, when I yelled FU at her at the beach), insecurities (sometimes I doubt my own decisions), and depression (because of the whole wedding and separation thing).

I hope I answered your question. For now, have a happy Thanksgiving Day!

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Hope you had a good Thanksgiving.

Please take everything I say here with a grain of salt (or more!)

You are living your situation and I am far removed in many ways, now. But I think I had to deal with some of these same type issues almost 50 years ago - when I was 19 and married my first wife who had just turned 17 and was pregnant.

We were both caught up in a KISA-DiD trap situation (Knight In Shining Armor "rescues" Damsel in Distress). She felt she had a VERY unhappy childhood and that her parents "abused" her - especially her Mom - by tieing her up and locking her in her room to control her, e.g. Her parents were much older and her older siblings were already either in college or just about out of HS when she was born. She was an "accident" unplanned child just as her parents "Golden Years" were about to start. One reason she finally gave in to my own pressure for her to have sex after 10 months of "going steady" dating (yeah - some KISA, eh? ;-( ) may have been her conscious/unconscious desire to just get out of that household as soon as she could. In 1968 that pretty much DID mean marriage for a pregnant girl if the guy was in ANY way shape or form willing. And I was willing.

But she would do some things that I thought seemed kind of crazy - and we did get her into counseling which I also was involved in just a tad so I could be aware of some of her issues.

I THINK I was told back then how very tricky this kind of situation is - for everyone involved. My wife was actually pretty smart - though dropping out of HS obviously she hadn't learned a whole lot yet. (She later had no problem getting her GED thru night school and even started some night college classes.) But I was told that what might be considered "crazy" or at least "irrational" behaviors or responses by her were actually QUITE rational to her - just given her background. Her basic "assumptions" about people and especially "loved ones" was quite different from my own very happy childhood with a TOTALLY consistently loving mother as my own personal childhood emotional "rock". She didn't have that and it made for great ongoing fear and trust and intimacy issues.

For one thing, my wife could absolutely not STAND the slightest criticism from me about anything at all. Period. I just could not go there - even things I would consider benign and nothing but "positive" "you might be able to do that better if you..." - nothing but extreme emotionally negative response from her. It takes a long time for a person to get over some things in their childhood - and I don't know that my ex-wife ever really totally did. We WERE married for 9 years, and after our divorce she remarried another guy within a year and has been with him ever since. So, I guess she worked it all out, somewhat.

Again, your wife and situation is different - but it just struck me as a tad familiar. But even you suggesting counseling for your wife, now, might set her off because I think you may have been tipped over into the "unsafe person/can't trust" column in her own mind. A place you obviously don't want to be and never thought you would be. But that is what just ONE yelling at her or forcefully touching her might do - which may seem unfair but is merely defensively logical to her - depending on just how bad her previous abusive history MIGHT be. (Again - I really don't know. Just some food for thought, maybe, and further careful investigation for truthful knowledge on your part. Again - be very careful of seeming to appear to her even further "untrustworthy". It can seem to be a huge Catch-22 kind of situation. Very hard for you to do the right thing. Maybe just revisit the 1st Corinthians definition of "love" and always keep that in the back of your mind when trying to communicate with your wife...)

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Originally Posted By: FaultyH
...Then she added "All of those hurtful things that I said to you I only said it out of anger, I didnt really mean it..." But then she brings back the same old story and start arguing and I just listen.

I had to move out from our old place because... after paying all the bills, I had a cushion of $25 per month!! So I moved out to a cheaper apartment.

She is a great person, but I think I cannot understand how she felt about this whole situation. Maybe I failed to protect her heart from the circumstances. Maybe I am too immature for a lifetime commitment. I don't know yet. One thing is for sure; I love her with all of my heart.



Repeat after me, its not all your fault. Its not all your fault. It takes two to make a marriage really work. Often it only takes one to destroy a marriage.

Your commitment, your protecting her heart are ways you are trying to shoulder more of the blame than you deserve.

If she complements you, says she made a mistake and then starts down the same old road of rants, she is the one that is immature, not you.

You need to work on your GAL, become the best most fascinating man she has ever seen, one who her girfriends want to know if she is through with you so they can date you.
One that she knows on everylevel is a keeper she let go and regretes doing so.

When that happens, if you as a mature integrated man approach her, she will respect you and treat you with respect and try to earn your love, or she just isn't mature enough to know what she had.

Good luck to you. The Holiday season is rough.


>43 years of marriage--My wife and I are now closer than we have been in decades. I believe that my SSM is over.
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