My world just fell apart

[Echota]

Be very careful to heal yourself outside of the relationship. You do not want her to perceive that you are doing this to "win her back" but to make yourself better. I am unsure of the "hurtful things" that you said, but saying them are so often controlling behaviors, intentional or not. Over years, they can be emotionally devastaiting.

 

Your change is necessary for any future healthy relationship. Your change will not guarantee her acceptance. Forgiveness comes first and hopefully, easily. Acceptance and trust are harder.

 

You're right MrSandman and that is my plan. I've got to deal with the problem (me) first then right things with her. I've already told her that I'm going to make some changes to make myself a better man for her but that was at the very begining of this whole thing and I don't know how seriously she took me. I went to a psychologist today and it went well. He gave me a coulple of meds and made an appointment for next week. I think this is going to be a goo start.

 

Everyone is telling me not to fix myself just to get her back but do it to make myself right. I hope the meds get me out of this funk I'm in and maybe I can start thinking a little clearer. I looked for my keys this morning for about twenty minutes and they were in the jacket I was wearing.

[Echota]

Help. I don't know if I'm about to make a big mistake. My wife is going to come to our home to talk about some work related stuff, bills and other logistics that are still pending. How far should I go? Should I tell her how much I miss her and what I'm doing to try to win her back? I know she needs her space and I'm afraid if I say the wrong thing she will draw further away from me.

[imagine]

Keep it light. Tell her that you are pleased to see her. Do not be overwhelming with your attention. Touch her politely as she sits down after you offer her the seat.

 

She may be suspicious of any loving action. Do these actions quietly and respectfully!

[hopesndreams]

If you don't try to win her back, she will be pulled in, unless there is an OM in the picture. Considering she wants to talk logistics, she already has a plan in mind. Have you investigated?

[floridapad]

You ARE about to make a big mistake and you know it. Right now it's not about what you want or need other than focusing on your own internal struggles with anger etc... You miss her?? Of course you do. How is telling her going to help the situation? Tell her your doing everything to look inside yourself because you love her??? Nope, won't work either. I know you want her to know these things but actions speak louder than words. Besides, aren't the changes you want to make for yourself and not because you want her back???? Don't directly tell her any of this stuff. In fact the more you tell her these things the more she feels like you are trying to win her back which won't work. Actions speak louder than words. Be HAPPY(yes it will be an act) in front of her (but don't go overboard with the nervous energy. Be COOL). keep the conversations to business. NO R TALK. There will be a time and a place and right now ain't it. Keep focusing on yourself. You still have ALOT of work to do on yourself. How can you fight for a marriage or win her back when you are still trying to heal. How can you succeed in future relationships while your making the changes for HER. It will come out as being weak and you will get far too emotional.....GUARANTEED. Oh and one more thing. I know you mentioned you have anger problems. Until you can learn to control them it will come out in any R talks you have with her until you learn to detach. You will be shooting yourself in the foot. Either that or you will go overboard with being nice and it will look fake to her. Either way your screwed. Thats why the best course of action is to avoid R talk and if she initiates just LISTEN. Do not counter her. Do not say you are changing. She will have to SEE that for herself. Now...Having said that, get back to working and reflecting on yourself and shortcomings. That is far more imortant whether or not there is a future with her.

 

Giving a person space, I finally realized, does not mean physical space but emotional space. How will you be giving her space by talking about the Relationship and your changes.

 

One other thing, try to think about the love busters she has that you do to her (anger, controlling argumentative what ever they may be). Think real hard about annoying habits you may have etc. etc. and stop doing them. This will also help you reflect on yourself and future relationships. If there are things that love bust your wife, 9 times out of ten they will probably love bust someone else including your children, coworkers, freinds etc. Don't just think about the wife in this process. You can learn about yourself for ALL of your relationships with everyone you come in contact with. THAT is why you don't do this Sh*t for your wife but rather yourself.

[Echota]

Keep it light. Tell her that you are pleased to see her. Do not be overwhelming with your attention. Touch her politely as she sits down after you offer her the seat.

 

She may be suspicious of any loving action. Do these actions quietly and respectfully!

 

Okay. That's the plan. It's just so hard not to scoop her up and tell her how much I miss her.

[Echota]

If you don't try to win her back, she will be pulled in, unless there is an OM in the picture. Considering she wants to talk logistics, she already has a plan in mind. Have you investigated?

 

No, I haven't investigated anything yet. I don't want to appear creepy. As far as her plans, I don't know. She still pays all of our bills and nothing major has really changed in that aspect. We own a business together and right now that it's slow due to the holidays I'm handling it by myself but she said she'd help me whenever I need her.

[Echota]

You ARE about to make a big mistake and you know it. Right now it's not about what you want or need other than focusing on your own internal struggles with anger etc... You miss her?? Of course you do. How is telling her going to help the situation?

 

Your right floridapad. It's just that there's so many things I should have said before this happened and so many other things I want to say now. My primary concern is fixing myself but I'm never going to give up hope that WE can fix this too.

 

I wasn't planning on begging her to come back but I was going to ask her if she could forgive me for what I have done to her. The contact we've had recently has been good but very strange in some ways. I do miss her. She is my best friend.

 

I will play it cool. It's going to be the hardest thing in the world not to try to make some kind of reconciliation but I'd rather wait it out than be to hasty and blow any chance in the future.

[Echota]

We had a good visit yesterday. Friendly, she smiled, we had a good time and we hugged a couple of times. She said we will talk after the holidays. I just can't read her. I know she'd different somehow but I wish I wasn't so clueless to her intentions.

[streetlamp]

I sure hope you can work through this. We all act out in anger at times. I hope that your longevity and love will get you through this.

 

Best of luck to you.

[Echota]

I sure hope you can work through this. We all act out in anger at times. I hope that your longevity and love will get you through this.

 

Best of luck to you.

 

Thank you streetlamp. I hope our time together is going to be the redeeming factor in any possibility of a reconciliation. I do love her so and I can only believe that she loves me too.

[floridapad]

Echota,

 

I'm so glad you had a good visit the other day with your W. There are many WAS's who completely Sh*t on the H and truly walk away. She is trying to work through her feelings and yes she does love you. But..... she is done...for now... and the near or perhaps long term future. What can you do? Be noble, honorable and classy. They will ALWAYS remember your actions and not necessarily your words. Think Clint Eastwood... Think John Wayne. Think of whatever role model you may have. Think of God, if you believe. You will find strength in all of this and ultimately you will find strength inside of YOU.

 

The fight for your W isn't over but it is a looooong journey (years not months. Can you handle that??). In the mean time....fight for yourself..Appreciate the small moments with your W but understand they are not moments for new beginnings but rather the end. Well.... at least the end for the old marriage and the old you for now. It's up to YOU to create a new you, let your W go and possibly create a whole new relationship down the road. Your W also needs to let go of you to explore herself. Until you and her have let go, there is very little chance of a new truly loving relationship. I f you truly have unconditional love for your wife, let go...

[tnttim]

You are screwing this up so bad and you don't even know it. You need to read a great book called "stop your divorce" by Homer Macdonald. You have to appear to your wife that you have moved on. As crazy as it seems, it F***ing works. You have to push the divorce, agree with her negative feelings, date other woman, be happy. You have to look at yourself in the mirror, would you come back to someone like you. Why would she, your still there, where you'll always be. She can come and go as she pleases, and viola, you're still there. Wake up dude. Remember the people here giving you advice are fighting there own demons too, have they won their spouse over yet, NO, then why take their advice on winning her over. Listen to their advice about dealing with the lose and the anguish. Also keep in mind she was where you are at now 3 years ago, that's a lot of damage. Instead of trying to fix the past damage, or even worse justifying it, move on and be strong. She fell in love with a strong, secure man, well that's what you have to be.

[Chingaling]

Okay, I’ll try to keep this short. My wife of 26 years left me the day before Thanksgiving. We had a spat about work and, like always, I over reacted and got angry, slammed the door and made a butt of myself (again). By the time it was over she was leaving, said “I love you but I’m not in love with you”, and that she’s felt this way for about 3 years. Of course I was in shock and first told her I’d leave the wound up begging her not to go

 

Before I get to my question I have to describe myself. I am loud, angry and many times just plain mean. Not in a physical way but I will say hurtful things and I’m pretty quick to fly off the handle. I sometimes become distant with matters of work and money but I don’t think many days have passed in all our time together when I didn’t say I “love you

 

She, on the other hand is calm, caring and very together. She has never wronged me in spite of the fact that I’ve let her down many times. It was suggested to me by a very dear friend of our that we should both make a list of what’s wrong with the other and hash this out. I thought for a long time and came up with nothing. She did nothing short of saving my life when we married. We’ve had our low points but the one thing I thought she would always know is that she is the center of my whole universe.

 

I still love her truly (and I am still in love with her) and I want to fix our relationship. In these past few days I’ve come to really understand myself and the way I must have made her feel. I don’t know what to say to her other than “I’m so very sorry” which is so very hollow in view of what I put her through. I know this is my fault but I am going to change. I’m aware how little it takes to set me off and I’m working on controlling myself. I have an appointment with a physiologist / couples councilor that said he’s going to try to help me identify my triggers, control them and get me out of the horrible funk I’m in. I want to be a better person for her

 

My question is am I redeemable? Will she ever forgive me? Is there any chance she would take a chance on me again?

 

Echota, I am a first time poster, but I have been lurking around a little bit. Your first post just blew me away. You could be my husband. He is loud, angry, mean, drinking, oblivious, cranky and has been that way for many years. We have been married about the same amount of time as you.

 

Our marriage parallels yours in so many ways - the only difference is that I haven't yet told him I am leaving after the holidays. I am sure he knows that something is wrong, but likely just thinks that it is the same as every other time we have argued - that I will calm down after a bit and things will go on as they always do.

 

But people do change over time, and the huge amount of love that they have for each other when they are first together gets depleted slowly but surely every time there is an "incident". At first the spills are tiny, hardly even noticable, but after a while, the cup gets emptier and emptier, until finally there is just very little left at the bottom. Around this time you start to think to yourself that nothing is ever going to change - it will always be the same or worse. You start to think that perhaps you should have left years ago and saved yourself all the yelling and arguing and misery. And then you start to realize that twenty years from now you don't want to be sitting there thinking to yourself that you should have left twenty years sooner.

 

By this time, you have already started to withdraw from the relationship. Your emotions are deadened, and you go into a tolerance phase until finally you get to the "can't stand it anymore" stage.

 

Which is where I am. I am not saying that my husband is not a good guy - he is, or that he doesn't love me - I know he does. But he is so hard to live with that I feel like I am walking on eggshells all the time trying not to set him off. He goes through stages where he is good - but soon he becomes complacent, and the behaviour starts all over again. Its an ebb and flow that I have now gotten used to.

 

Will your wife come back? I don't see it happening, to tell you the truth. I think that she feels badly that you are hurt, and is trying to maintain a decent relationship, but my thought is that when a woman who is not being abused leaves her husband and her home, that she is truly done with her marriage and likely has someone that she is going to. Your treating her like that over all those years likely made her an easy target for the first guy that spoke to her quietly and respectfully.

 

When you have your next relationship talk, ask her straight out if you should be moving on. If she says yes, then move on. There is nothing worse than a lingering breakup unless it is a dead marriage.

 

I wish you well, I truly do. As I read through the thread, I could see how much you love your wife and want her back.

[Gunny376]

Oh that's all well and good unless your the person that's got the monkees on his back!

 

The IRS, the taxes, the car payments, the mortgage, the debt, the DUN's(Due Upon Notice), the credit card bills?

 

The foreman talking about lay-offs, in a weaking economy?

 

The fact of the matter is?

 

We get married too young! Count it up to hormones!

 

None of us should get married until a man has a good and steady job!

 

Then he needs to be able to furunish a home with furniture and applicances!

 

CASH DOWN!

 

I want this and that ~ here's the money! Deliver it to this address!

 

A man should have bought a house before he ever got married!

 

Built, mostly paid for and / or paid for before he ever got married?