Last night after the kids were asleep, my wife and I were taking care of some busy-work around the house, and starting to wind-down for the night and get ready to get to sleep, etc.
We've been keeping and sleeping in separate rooms for just over a year now. She had said she was going to relax and watch some TV. I was in the kitchen, we talked about a few things with respect to family business for today (going to our son's soccer game this morning etc.), and we wrapped that up.
At that point I said that I would leaver her alone and I didn't want to intrude on her relaxation time or bother her, and that I was going to go to my room. She asked me if I wanted to watch TV with her. I asked her if she wanted me to. She said she couldn't answer the question because she didn't know what kind of frame of mind I was in, how I was feeling, and so on... She said if I was going to be in a bad mood and upset and the like that she'd rather have the time to herself, but that if I could just relax with her and take it easy and not be upset or angry or anything with her or anything else, or anything like that, that she didn't mind if I watched TV with her.
At this point I became very frustrated. I was tempted to simply walk out and not say anything and be upset that she had yet again failed to express a desire to spend time together, and to be with me.
That's when it hit me. I realized that kind of response is a big part of why I feel it's as if she doesn't want to be with me, that she'd rather be alone or with someone else. I need for her to unequivocally express that she wants me to be with her, and not put it on me to make that decision for her. I would much rather she simply say yes or no, and if she says yes, and I end up doing something that bothers or upsets her, or detracts from what she wants to have in terms of what she wants from her experience, then just tell me what it is and ask me to stop, or whatever.
And, I realized, she does this all the time... She insists I make her decisions for her about whether or not we spend time together, and I hate it. I hate it because it says to me that she doesn't really want to be with me and she wants me to show that, when I already have made that clear to her that I want to but I don't feel from her like she wants me to, and I hate that she's placing responsibility for her experience on me.
I want to be able to tell her this is how I feel about this dynamic that exists between us, but I know the chances are great that it will only lead to an argument, and won't be productive at all in terms of helping our relationship. We've fallen into a sort of knee-jerk set of responses to one another over dealing with just about anything with respect to our relationship, and I don't want to keep falling into that, I want to break out of it, and I feel that talking about this issue would be a good thing to do, but at the same time, it's going to be all too easy to have that attempt become just another example of that broken, dysfunctional, knee-jerk routine that we get trapped in so often.
So, I want to let her know how I feel about this; that I still want to spend time with her and be close to her, that I want to be able to have a good time together and enjoy each other's company, but that I need her to stop putting the responsibility for her half of the decision in those situations on me. So how can I do this without it just becoming more of the same dysfunctional dynamic?
We've been keeping and sleeping in separate rooms for just over a year now. She had said she was going to relax and watch some TV. I was in the kitchen, we talked about a few things with respect to family business for today (going to our son's soccer game this morning etc.), and we wrapped that up.
At that point I said that I would leaver her alone and I didn't want to intrude on her relaxation time or bother her, and that I was going to go to my room. She asked me if I wanted to watch TV with her. I asked her if she wanted me to. She said she couldn't answer the question because she didn't know what kind of frame of mind I was in, how I was feeling, and so on... She said if I was going to be in a bad mood and upset and the like that she'd rather have the time to herself, but that if I could just relax with her and take it easy and not be upset or angry or anything with her or anything else, or anything like that, that she didn't mind if I watched TV with her.
At this point I became very frustrated. I was tempted to simply walk out and not say anything and be upset that she had yet again failed to express a desire to spend time together, and to be with me.
That's when it hit me. I realized that kind of response is a big part of why I feel it's as if she doesn't want to be with me, that she'd rather be alone or with someone else. I need for her to unequivocally express that she wants me to be with her, and not put it on me to make that decision for her. I would much rather she simply say yes or no, and if she says yes, and I end up doing something that bothers or upsets her, or detracts from what she wants to have in terms of what she wants from her experience, then just tell me what it is and ask me to stop, or whatever.
And, I realized, she does this all the time... She insists I make her decisions for her about whether or not we spend time together, and I hate it. I hate it because it says to me that she doesn't really want to be with me and she wants me to show that, when I already have made that clear to her that I want to but I don't feel from her like she wants me to, and I hate that she's placing responsibility for her experience on me.
I want to be able to tell her this is how I feel about this dynamic that exists between us, but I know the chances are great that it will only lead to an argument, and won't be productive at all in terms of helping our relationship. We've fallen into a sort of knee-jerk set of responses to one another over dealing with just about anything with respect to our relationship, and I don't want to keep falling into that, I want to break out of it, and I feel that talking about this issue would be a good thing to do, but at the same time, it's going to be all too easy to have that attempt become just another example of that broken, dysfunctional, knee-jerk routine that we get trapped in so often.
So, I want to let her know how I feel about this; that I still want to spend time with her and be close to her, that I want to be able to have a good time together and enjoy each other's company, but that I need her to stop putting the responsibility for her half of the decision in those situations on me. So how can I do this without it just becoming more of the same dysfunctional dynamic?