I guess the attack was a failure. Unlike the past few weeks, today she's sleeping with the kids instead.
What hurts is that I feel that I'm just biting on the surface of love for her, and she's off to reject me because I can't make up my emotions fast enough.
Don't necessarily interpret the sleeping with the kids as a failure. She might just be protecting her feelings from hurt right now because she is scared of D.
Thanks again rr22. Amazing how we can read something in a book, but until someone rephrases it or a situation hits us, it can be easily forgotten.
I really wish that she wouldn't play games with me. If she would just say what is on her mind/heart fearlessly, our R could go so much further. I'm really banking on the self-esteem/IC stuff helping her. If not, I've got to the point where I know I can't continue living with her - love or not love.
June asked me if I would stay if we 'fixed' my main concerns. I thought that choosing/developing love was my main issue. Last night, when I tried uselessly to sleep for 3 hours, I felt that feeling of loss. I re-examined the feeling and knew it wasn't just loss, it was loneliness, too. Love? Not yet, but close. I need to feel safe in the R, feel accepted not ashamed, and then I can connect. Those are the 'minimums'.
She came to sleep in our bed later, and both of us tossed and turned for an hour, 1/2 of which I hugged her to try to break some of the fear (if it was). While I can't say I succeeded, I realized that my minimums haven't been met.
I probably need to keep working on meeting hers, too.
OTM, i'm just curious, are you saying that you're not sure if you love your wife? it almost seems like you're hoping to suddenly realize that you do love her and that will help you start on the path to working on your M.
i always thought one wanted to work on their M BECAUSE they loved their spouse. not working on your M to find out IF you love them. that goes back to what i said about my coach's suggestion. decide what you want, then go after it.
was there ever a point in your M where you could easily without hesitation say you loved your W? if so, what were you both doing differently then?
Me30 H29 M2.5 T5 H moved out 1/23/2010 H wants signed agreement 3/30/2010 ...feeling hopeless
by the way, on my thread you said that inside, you felt like the issues were more her "fault" than yours. i'm sure she would say the same thing about you, right? part of DB-ing is to drop the blame and move past it. as long as you harbor feelings of "this is your fault," even if they are only in your own mind and you don't share them with your W...you'll be sabotaging any effort you make to repair your M.
moving past "fault" has been hard for me. i want to say, well, clearly, my H is the one who wants out, so the blame can fall on him. but it's not that easy. it took BOTH of us, EQUALLY, acting and reacting to one another, to get us to the place that we're in now. hopefully you can look at yourself and your M and see that for all the fault you want to place on her, she probably places an equal amount of fault on you. and where does that leave your M?
Me30 H29 M2.5 T5 H moved out 1/23/2010 H wants signed agreement 3/30/2010 ...feeling hopeless
Yes, I do not (yet!) love her. I care deeply for her, but that isn't the same. One poster suggested love is a choice...I'm trying to consider that. I've never had a time to refer back to, either, when I did.
If this makes sense, until my kids were old enough to show their love for me, I wasn't sure how good being loved AND LOVING someone felt.
What I'm hoping for is that if I improve myself, understand the R better, that I'll see something in her that our fighting has prevented.
love is a choice. but it becomes a choice once daily life glazes over the honeymoon phase you were in in the early stages of your R. you fall in love, you get married, you deal with the cards life deals you, and you chose to continue to love and be with the person you married. but i don't know how it works when you may have never really loved her to begin with. i know some people grow to love one another over time.
Me30 H29 M2.5 T5 H moved out 1/23/2010 H wants signed agreement 3/30/2010 ...feeling hopeless
Positives: 1. I gave 2 examples of what ways she has said in the last month that I’m improving to counter her argument that I had not improved as a husband. 2. I did not lose my temper 3. I accepted responsibility for interrupting her in a conversation earlier today, and most importantly, she recognized that I had noticed during the conversation and stopped myself when I noticed that she felt the conversation belonged to her and I had no role in it 4. I told her that I would not accept her “ripping at me” through personality attacks 5. She said that she felt belittled by me many times in the past, for which I apologized 6. She blamed me for our daughter crying about how she felt like a failure (she’s 10), and instead of defending or getting condescending. I simply let her know how I handled D10s feelings and gave evidence that I had noticed the problem, addressed it in good detail and care
Negatives: 1. W is getting angrier than before 2. W is hopeless and things that me + her = her and my daughters problems with esteem and more 3. W didn’t care that I was hurt by her words, in fact she seemed to be empowered by it 4. My little sapling of love I was beginning to feel is disappearing and being replaced by pain and a feeling of massive failure/shame.
If I 'disappeared' for 1 wk, slept at home from 11-6, but otherwise gone, no involvement with kids, nothing...do you think that would help my W get the separation idea out of her head?
