blind

James-son,

I just read this entire thread. I think the others have given you some pretty good advice. Swedish referred you to my thread. I certainly don't have all the answers and have a very volatile marriage myself. But, I think I have learned some things over the past few months. If you can find something that helps in my thread, great.

Let me preface this by saying I'm not intending this to be an attack on you. I hope you don't take it that way. But, you are the one posting here and I can only assume you came here for advice and the opinions of others.

Anyway, here is what came to mind when I finished reading this thread. I would take a deep breath and try to get some composure. Your emotions and thoughts are probably all over the place right now. Mine are too, but I find when I can step back, try to relax, and think objectively I feel much better and grounded. It can be tought to get a foothold and your bearings, but trust me it will help. It is okay to break down on occassion but try to do it when you are alone and have some time to recover. This may not be possible all the time, but it helps to try As draconis pointed out, it took years to get where your marriage is and will take a great amount of time and effort to fix. There is nothing that will fix this now, but, there are things that can slowly repair the wounds. Yes there will be scars left but that is okay. Scars remind us of what happened and help us avoid the same mistakes in the future.

I agree you should read The Five Languages of Love. Reading a book will not magically fix the issues, but it will likely give you some perspective on how this all happened. For years I gave my wife what I wanted and she gave me what she wanted. Depiste thinking that I was being a good husband, I missed the mark. Heck, my shot wasn't even on the paper. My wife met my needs a little better. It is not about giving your wife what YOU think she needs, rather, it is about giving your wife what SHE actually needs. It is hard to do this when your wife is not reciprocating. I am dealing with this right now. My wife feels she has been giving me everything with no reciprocation for years. Your wife may feel the same. Remember, perception is reality. Feelings happen, justified or not. If you want this to work I believe you need to find out what she needs. If you can give her this she will be more able to give you what you need. You will need to make sure she understands your needs. To wrap this up, its a two way street of giving and receiving. It also matters very much what is being given and what is being received.

Giving this time will also take patience. I made the mistake of pushing my wife too hard to commit to working on the marriage. This may have been the very thing that caused her to decide divorce is her best option. Please don't make the same mistake I did. It is hard for guys (especially) to be patient. I wanted to get in and get it fixed. My wife's emotions just don't work that way and I doubt your wife's do either.

Is it too little too late? Noone here can tell you that. It may well be too late for my marriage. I'll find out soon enough (and maybe all too soon). You will too. But remember, if there is any chance for the marriage to be saved and be happy you will need to make some changes and commit to them over the long haul. You will need to be consitent. If it is too late atleast you will have some comfort in knowing you did your best once you realized the issues. I can't imagine giving up on my marriage and having to live with the realization that I didn't do my best. I don't want to wake up in the middle of the night thinking if I had done a little more maybe it would have worked. (Sorry this sounds so much like the ending of Schindler's List)

I hope you can get your marriage headed in the right direction. As my friend always tells me, "Just keep swingin' Apollo" (quote from Rocky). (Hmm is two movie references in the same post too many?)

Best of luck to you.

Blind