Its held in a hotel in New Jersey for the weekend and follow up sessions are in the basement of the church.
Thank you for your reply. Those are good suggestions about this helping me to communicate better. She only communicates to me through anger and when she does that, I normally shut down and give no response. Our marriage is like an open book with wife's family. There are many, many more things that I have had to put up with from her family. They do not respect me and treat me as they would like to be treated.
She is very sensitive to self-criticism and has an answer for everything. It really ticks her off when I do not obey her commands and do as she says. Sunday night she got mad at me because my parents do not want to move to an assisted living faciltiy and stay in their home. Then she tells me that her father is mad at my dad because my dad, who has only been getting an army pension (WWII) since 1998, is getting more from the army then her dad (also was in WWII). And her dad has been receiving this for years. I wish my dad to relay that message to my wife. My family is poor, we grew up on welfare. Her family, her grandfather made himself into a millionare so they do not have any financial problems. They take fine vacations, Europe, Cruises, etc. My family goes no where for vacation.
My family has not done anything to my wife as bad as I have been getting it from her family. To understand this, it would be like my family making cruel comments about my wife's weight over and over and I did nothing to stop it. CY
We have only been married for three years, but we have spent three times the amount of time together of a normal couple because we work together... If I had known what me working with my wife was going to do to us, I would have left after a week and gotten my own career started, whether I was working for minimum wage at McDonald's or making $50,000 a year in the IT field... It wouldn't matter which one I picked because my wife would have missed me when I got home rather than becoming sick of seeing me every day for 16 hours a day.
We went to Marriage Encounter a couple weekends ago, which was a huge mistake for a marriage that hasn't just lost the intimacy, but has truly lost the love. My wife hates me, likely as much as your wife hates you CY, and she has been having an emotional relationship with an OM... She has specifically said she doesn't love me anymore, never really loved me, and has no desire to work on our marriage anymore.
My Dad had cancer surgery yesterday, and I asked her to be there for me and him for support. She agreed, and at some point in the day, we stole off to a private room so I could read her a letter I had written to her about how I am changing my life for me, working for me, and taking control of my life. We held hands throughout the day, she held me as a friend, and at the end of the day when she was going back home, I kissed her without any meaning of intimacy... it was a "thank you for being here for me" kiss. When I got home, she turned it all around on me, saying I was being manipulative, using my dad to get closer to her and get her to come back to our marriage, which was the furthest thing from the truth, but she has now resorted to blaming me for everything bad in her life.
Last night, we called the Retrouvaille leader, and somehow she convinced my wife to go with me even though my wife has completely lost any hope for us. I have not given up, and I will not give up, because I know she has become disillusioned and confused by the OM and my own actions. I know that my actions are habits, and not personality traits, and she is in denial because of the excitement and ease of communication with the OM... I have hope that Retrouvaille will help us, if not bring us back together in our marriage, allow us to not argue about everything and live in peace with each other.
I am very much afraid of going there with her though, as Marriage Encounter just caused her pain. We haven't had sex in over a month, she is disgusted by me, doesn't want to see me or talk to me, and has no belief that I can change my behaviors. I love her with all my heart, and I feel that we are meant for each other, and I will not give up... I hope someone can convince me that even if we don't remain married, everything will be okay...
The beginning of the end of our marriage - April 28th, 2007 ILYBINILWY - July 20th, 2007 IT'S OVER - August 5th, 2007 First Coaching Session - August 9th, 2007 Retrouvaille - August 10th, 2007...
We were married 20 yrs this past May but for at least 10 of those years, we are not happy. We have two children, ages 10 (daughter) and 12 (son who has ADHD). Daughter has ADHD too but not as severe.
I still live at home sleeping in the office which has a single bed in it now since June, 2006. So my wife and I haven't been intimate for going on 15 months now. My wife does not talk to me, only yells and swears at me for most of our marriage. I guess I enabled that because I said nothing until I exploded after months of hanging on to that resentment and anger. I learned that to hang on to stuff like that is too heavy to begin with, only makes you sick and is futile to your mental well being.
My wife holds me responsible for the way our marriage is, yet does not hold herself accountable. As for myself, I have changed myself since January because I prayed and asked the Lord to let me see myself as He sees me and in humility, I asked Him to change me because human beings cannot change themselves. That is the only person you can change, is yourself.
My wife is too proud to admit her faults and also is unwilling to change her behavior, even for the sake of our 2 children. She keeps score on things I do and in all honesty, she never grew up. She risked the peace within our own home rather then have a 2 minute conversation with certain members of her family who enjoyed persecuting me. I finally stood up to that and wife and family expect me to say I'm sorry. I have never gotten due respect from wife and family and they never treated me as they would want to be treated.
So now they all hate me. At least, now I do not have to hear about how much Jesus, the Passion and the Gospel is full of Shi@ and their other bigot attitudes towards my faith. I have learned though they these people will not get me angry anymore because they no longer have power over me. I know Jesus loves me and I want to do His Will.
I am hoping my wife is agreable to Retrouvaille too because the sucess rate is over 80%. It will challange you and from what I read, it is the last technique. I did DB for months and saw no results. I pull my weight more around the house, am kind and considerate but my wife has her problems. When she was going to summer school, she would call me on the way, because my kids would be alone for about 1/2 hour and just shared her day. No matter how good or bad a day I had, I always answered the phone like, Hey, how's it going? or Hello how are you? and my tone was always cheerful.
My wife expects perfection and was raised that way so her family is messed up in the head too.
If I call her, she answers "WHAT, OR YEAH ROCK or something like that but in a nasty tone. I ignore it as best I can.
I have never been to Marriage Encounter. I overheard some people at the Retrouvaille weekend talking about the difference between Marriage Encounter and Retrouvaille. They said that Marriage Encounter is not for troubled marriages. That is doesn't deal with the problems of troubled marriages. Retrouvaille, on the other hand, is specifically geared to troubled marriages. It is often attended by people on the brink of divorce or separated. It is recommended by divorce mediators and some judges, before divorce.
I think you and your wife will benefit greatly from Retrouvaille because it specifically deals with how to communicate without going round and round. I mentionned to my husband last night that we haven't had an argument in the 6 months since we completed the Retrouvaille training. He smiled and agreed. That is unbelievable. We used to argue constantly -- if I said it was a nice day, he said it was awful...and vice versa. We just disagreed about everything. Now we get along. Amazing.
During private sessions, are any of the past incedents and things that upset you written down and given to your spouse to read? I mean, how do you move forward, without that? I know I don't understand all this. For example, when my wife talks to me, she is aggressive and her tone is raiesed and talks in anger. I don't like that and I am unresponsive to it anyway.
Another example; my wife would always critize everything I did, and I mean everything (i.e. it takes me too long to cut the grass, you fold the laundry and make too many piles, you need to measure exactly how much flour and sugar when you make cookies, etc. (stupid stuff I know)).
Her complaint is I don't appreciate everything she does, most things a woman would complain about. Me, I don't get respect from her and her family.
At Retrouvaille you talk about yourself only. You cannot say "You criticize me unmercifully, and it hurts me." But you can say, " I feel like a child who is chastised by the teacher in front of all the other children. I feel humiliated when I make an effort to help with chores around the house." Do you see the difference? You have not said anything about her. But she knows why you feel this way. You just don't say it. And when you take that backdoor approach she can accept it better. She can think, "oh, I don't want him to feel bad when he helps. Maybe I could say thank you sometimes." And if she has that thought on her own, then your marriage will be improved. You speak as imagistically as you can to get the point across about how you feel in the marriage.
They will give you pointed questions to elicit these conversations. Then you both have a set period of time to write your feelings in your notebook. Next your go to the privacy of the room to exchange the notebooks. You read the letters twice, once with your head and once with your heart. And then you discuss them in the way that you are taught. You deal with the past first, thinking about what you might have done wrong yourself, and apologizing. After that, the past is taboo. You don't bring up the past. So when you have arguments in the future and one person goes back 15 years to something, you say, "you can't bring up the past." And that source of the circular argument is done with. If you really follow the rules of Retrouvaille, arguments become shorter and less frequent.
In the Post sessions there is an entire session on being critical. In that lesson not criticizing is pointedly discussed. But the weekend focuses only on learning the dialogue technique and doing the questions. So both the weekend and all the post sessions are equally important.
Thank you so much for the direct approach. When you put these things down, and I hope, my wife knows why I feel that way, what if she asks me, why do I feel that way, give me some examples?
I have to be careful because she has an answer for everything and puts it back on me. For example, she has told me that she hit me (although not in 5 years when I told her to stop doing that) because I make her mad. I don't make her do anything.
She did tell me that when my children hit one another, she said to me that she told the children that we don't hit in this house. My kids responded, you hit daddy. So she told them that wasn't right. This conversation took place this past January. I told her I appreciated that she did tell the children that, but help me understand why you never apologized to me for that. Then she apologizd and I thanked her for that. That is the 1st time in 20 years we are married that she apologized for her behavior.
Normally, in the past when she lost control of her temper, she would make me a special meal, do me a favor of buy me something without mentioning why she was doing that. I knew why, but I would rather have her not do that, but instead say she is sorry to me.
That was my wife's way of making up to me. But I would rather have words of affirmation then gifts like that. I've said I am sorry many times for my poor behavior and actions.
Thanks again and I expect I should get the flyer from Retrouvaille in tonight's mail. God Bless you for that. Rocco
During the dialogue there is a specific way that you are trained to ask questions. You will both have to do 10 minutes of the structured questions on the writing before the dialogue is over. When it is over, you are then free to have a conversation. She probably will have had the wind taken out of her sails by the dialogue part, but if she is still up for the attack, she can do it. And you can respond as you see fit. However, the point is clearly made -- your feelings are your feelings. They are neither right or wrong, they are your feelings. If there is a problem such as she thinks you are wrong to have the feelings you have, then bring that up in the next meeting session. They will tell everyone that we all have a right to our own feelings, and our feelings are not wrong. There are always a few people who want to tell the spouse how they should be feeling. That doesn't fly in this group.
Thank you. That makes me feel better, especially your comment, "There are always a few people who want to tell the spouse how they should be feeling. That doesn't fly in this group."
I am not sure this will work for her. I know one thing, unless she has a change of heart, she will not like this at all. Many times she has said in the past that "If you want to make this marriage work, you need to do this, that and the other." I kept quiet thinking to myself, "Gee, what is she going to do to make this marriage work? Why am I the only one that has to make changes?"
I just received the brochure on Retrovaille this evening and it sounds great. I haven't approached my wife on this yet but hope to do so this weekend, especially since the next session is in Sept.
I pray and please pray that my wife is open to this and we both learn how to get along with another and that love will return to both of us more strong. CY
