General Relationship DiscussionAlthough anyone can post anywhere on Talk About Marriage, this section is for people interested in general relationship and marriage advice.
Thank you for this, and yes that is exactly what i was meaning in my post.
Yes this is a concern to me too, but what can i do about it. She is adamant that she wants to keep a friendship here, because she doesn't want to abandon him and she doesn't want to hurt him. I know my wife she is the sweetest most caring woman i have ever met, so i understand that she doesn't want to hurt and abandon him and i while i don't agree that they can just be friends and just put their feelings aside like that, she told me that she could and i can only trust her word on it. Is this wrong of me?
I know you say to ignore the blame and not get defensive... but to be honest i blame myself for 99.9% of what has gone wrong in our marriage. This is why I am taking the steps that I feel that i need to take in order to be the best man that i can be for her.
Regarding your questions i just posted (see above post from me) about giving up control and how to go about it. To be honest the only control that i need, is to know that we are both in this for better or for worse until death. Past that she control whatever she wants and tell me what she wants to control. As soon as she tells me what she wants me to control (as you said earlier) I will jump in head first and do it to the best of my ability, without letting things fall to the wayside.
@posse
I don't know if I personally want to do marriage counseling with her being away. I would prefer to go in person if at all. I have not heard good things about marriage counseling and was trying to look more into marriage programs / marriage enrichment courses as opposed to counseling. Would you suggest doing both?
When my wife had an affair during our seperation It was with one of her ex boyfriends. Actually her first boyfriend she ever had. They re-connected through facebook a about a month or two before me and my wife agreed to seperate. I was concerned with her being friends with him but she told me that she was no longer physically attracted to him at all but she just felt bad for him and didn't want to abandon their friendship. Thing is they weren't friends for years before they re-connected so I didn't understand that. Anyways, to summarize everything she made it sound like the physical attraction wasn't there and she was just being a friend but when our relationship took a brief hiatus and we had a break, she went right out and screwed him. In my experience from this I can honestly say if a woman says shes not physically attracted to her ex, but just re-connected with him especially while you are having marital issues, she is lying. The last thing any spouse should do when they know their marriage is having problems is seek friendship with an ex flame. In fact, he's probably the one she talks to the most about the issues she has with you. Its one thing if they were close friends the whole time but when they just re-connect trust me, if they were attracted to eachother in the past, if you and her have any kind of seperation or "break" he will probably be the first person she will sleep with because #1 she is familiar with him #2 she won't feel as bad about it because she has had a connection with him in the past and has slept with him in the past no matter how long it has been.
Maybe I'm just being bitter here but am I making any sense?
Had a talk with her tonight. A good one. She is finally starting to re-open up to me about everything that she is feeling. We talked openly about our feelings for about an hour until she started to fall asleep. She told me that she really does want us to work out but she is afraid that if she decides to work things out with me that something may go wrong and she will be unhappy again. While also being scared that this may be her only opportunity to leave and be with the ex. She told me that she feels like she wants to have kids because she wants to feel like she is loved unconditionally. I told her that I do love her unconditionally and that I am proving that by still loving her through the EA and will continue to prove that by being the best man that I can be for her, and doing little things to show my love for her even in the most troubling times. She also talked about how she wants to feel like we are our age. She feels like I am to mature for my age and that because of that our relationship has felt like we are an old couple, boring and slow. I told her that I felt like we were being like that because we had grown apart due to the above issues, and that I do want to be able to go out and have fun and live life to the fullest with her. I asked her to think about where she sees herself in 5 years. I asked her not to think about the what ifs. Concentrate on the here and now and not to dwell on the past but instead look to the future. I asked her to think about how she would feel if we stayed open with one another and did work our marriage in a way that we both could be happy. How would she feel spending the rest of our lives together like that, happy and open, and with unconditional love for one another. I asked her how would she feel if i did keep her as my top priority, go out of my way to make her happy before making myself happy, for the rest of our lives. Would that life be worth putting everything into? Would that life fulfill your every dream? Think about what your dreams are. What I know of her dreams is that she wants to be able to be a stay at home mom / freelance writer and photographer. She confirmed this on the phone. I told her that works for me because all I have ever dreamed to be is a good husband, a great father, and a provider for my family. Lastly i asked her what the best way to accomplish her dreams would be. Then when we were going to bed she asked me to join her in dreamland (something we have been doing since we were dating) and to meet her in our dream home, and that she loves me. I told her that I love her too and that I would meet her there.
We still have a lot more to go through and she is opening up to me again. Which feels amazing. We are suppose to talk again tomorrow evening. Any feed back before then would be much appreciated.
Had a talk with her tonight. A good one. She is finally starting to re-open up to me about everything that she is feeling. We talked openly about our feelings for about an hour until she started to fall asleep. She told me that she really does want us to work out but she is afraid that if she decides to work things out with me that something may go wrong and she will be unhappy again. While also being scared that this may be her only opportunity to leave and be with the ex. She told me that she feels like she wants to have kids because she wants to feel like she is loved unconditionally. I told her that I do love her unconditionally and that I am proving that by still loving her through the EA and will continue to prove that by being the best man that I can be for her, and doing little things to show my love for her even in the most troubling times. She also talked about how she wants to feel like we are our age. She feels like I am to mature for my age and that because of that our relationship has felt like we are an old couple, boring and slow. I told her that I felt like we were being like that because we had grown apart due to the above issues, and that I do want to be able to go out and have fun and live life to the fullest with her. I asked her to think about where she sees herself in 5 years. I asked her not to think about the what ifs. Concentrate on the here and now and not to dwell on the past but instead look to the future. I asked her to think about how she would feel if we stayed open with one another and did work our marriage in a way that we both could be happy. How would she feel spending the rest of our lives together like that, happy and open, and with unconditional love for one another. I asked her how would she feel if i did keep her as my top priority, go out of my way to make her happy before making myself happy, for the rest of our lives. Would that life be worth putting everything into? Would that life fulfill your every dream? Think about what your dreams are. What I know of her dreams is that she wants to be able to be a stay at home mom / freelance writer and photographer. She confirmed this on the phone. I told her that works for me because all I have ever dreamed to be is a good husband, a great father, and a provider for my family. Lastly i asked her what the best way to accomplish her dreams would be. Then when we were going to bed she asked me to join her in dreamland (something we have been doing since we were dating) and to meet her in our dream home, and that she loves me. I told her that I love her too and that I would meet her there.
We still have a lot more to go through and she is opening up to me again. Which feels amazing. We are suppose to talk again tomorrow evening. Any feed back before then would be much appreciated.
Thats good to hear. You two have good dialogue going and are talking about things. Me and my wife are at a stand still right now, sounds like she wants it to work, if she didn't she wouldn't be talking so deeply with you about life in general, she would just talk to you about mundane, every day things that don't have any relevance. Sounds like you are on the right track man, just take it day by day. And remember you don't have to put her before you for the rest of your lives, you still have to do things that make you happy and the things that make you happy aren't always going to make her happy. Thats what compromise is all about. You both put the other before yourself at times but you can't do that all the time. Then it becomes just living off of that person which is co-dependant, which is the kind of relationship I was in with my wife, I think its pretty much what destroyed my marriage or atleast got the ball rolling. I always put my wife first and once I saw she didn't do the same for me it caused resentment and made me miserable.
I think i have identified what the biggest issue in my marriage was. While we were dating we had long periods of times that we were separated (me living in new orleans her in kansas) and it hurt me to be away from her. My natural defense mechanism is to build up a wall to protect myself from being hurt. That wall caused me to push her away, by being controlling and not connected. Even after we married I kept my wall up because i had been hurt before in my previous relationships and i didn't want to get hurt again (this obviously was not healthy, should have dropped my baggage and realized that this is my wife and she is here to stay but i didnt). Me having my wall up and pushing her away caused her to build her own wall to shield her from being hurt that I was being distant and wouldnt let her close to me like I had in our courting phase. Once both of our walls were up we continued to grow further apart and she looked for something that she could be close to. This led her to start talking with her ex again and ofcourse she is going to be able to connect with him, they had been in love before, and she just wanted to be let into someones heart again, someone to comfort her, and pull her in. Instead of pushing her away. After she told my that she loved someone else and wanted to leave me, I would of thought i would have just thickened my wall and pushed her completely out... but i didnt. Instead it blew apart my wall, made me realize the things i had been doing to push her away, and made me realize that what i truly want is for her to be in my heart, and me in hers. To be her wall and protect her from every other hurt there is in the world, instead of throwing hurt at her. However her wall is still up I think it is slowly coming down the more she opens up to me. I know that we can work everything out and be close to one another and not feel the need for our walls, not feel the need to be protected from each other, and only let each other in rather than push each other away. Both of us just have to want it and put everything we have into it. Im not naive I know we will have our little fights here and there because we are irritated with something the other is doing, but I feel like those little fights wont be hurtful, and wont be lasting in our memories. I feel like we needed to go through all of this to realize what we mean to one another, to realize that we made the right choice in our partner, and to make known to both of us that what we really truly want is US forever, and to know that our partner loves us unconditionally. I think that if anything is going to prove all of that to us it is getting through what we are going through right now.
I think i have identified what the biggest issue in my marriage was. While we were dating we had long periods of times that we were separated (me living in new orleans her in kansas) and it hurt me to be away from her. My natural defense mechanism is to build up a wall to protect myself from being hurt. That wall caused me to push her away, by being controlling and not connected. Even after we married I kept my wall up because i had been hurt before in my previous relationships and i didn't want to get hurt again (this obviously was not healthy, should have dropped my baggage and realized that this is my wife and she is here to stay but i didnt). Me having my wall up and pushing her away caused her to build her own wall to shield her from being hurt that I was being distant and wouldnt let her close to me like I had in our courting phase. Once both of our walls were up we continued to grow further apart and she looked for something that she could be close to. This led her to start talking with her ex again and ofcourse she is going to be able to connect with him, they had been in love before, and she just wanted to be let into someones heart again, someone to comfort her, and pull her in. Instead of pushing her away. After she told my that she loved someone else and wanted to leave me, I would of thought i would have just thickened my wall and pushed her completely out... but i didnt. Instead it blew apart my wall, made me realize the things i had been doing to push her away, and made me realize that what i truly want is for her to be in my heart, and me in hers. To be her wall and protect her from every other hurt there is in the world, instead of throwing hurt at her. However her wall is still up I think it is slowly coming down the more she opens up to me. I know that we can work everything out and be close to one another and not feel the need for our walls, not feel the need to be protected from each other, and only let each other in rather than push each other away. Both of us just have to want it and put everything we have into it. Im not naive I know we will have our little fights here and there because we are irritated with something the other is doing, but I feel like those little fights wont be hurtful, and wont be lasting in our memories. I feel like we needed to go through all of this to realize what we mean to one another, to realize that we made the right choice in our partner, and to make known to both of us that what we really truly want is US forever, and to know that our partner loves us unconditionally. I think that if anything is going to prove all of that to us it is getting through what we are going through right now.
Thats cool man. Well if she does decide whole heartedly to try to make everything work, you need to talk to her about cutting off the ex again because trust me, while you may be in denial and tell yourself that it doesn't effect you it does and if she continues her friendship with him its going to naturally cause resentment. You might not even realize the resenment is building up because it comes in small doses until it gets bigger and you eventually explode. So yeah, the ex needs to go eventually once you do work things out because a relationship is between two people and you can't have an emotional distraction like that. Its not fair to you. I went to a counselor for quite some time after my wife had an affair with her ex and she was trying to do the friendship thing with him and my counselor told me any counselor will tell you that if she wants your relationship to work she needs to totally cut off any relations with the ex-factor, period.
Not trying to plant seeds in your head, I'm no marriage expert, like I said my marriage is on the rocks but I'm just speaking from personal experience when it comes to ex-factors and how they can hinder a marriage. You can say you trust her all you want but there is still a part of you, even if its tiny that doesn't trust her, or most of all doesn't trust HIM. My wife cut that guy off but he wouldn't stop contacting her so I actually had to call the guy up and threaten restraining orders and all kinds of stuff to get our point across. He eventually stopped calling.
We talked again tonight and she said that she has made her decision. She has decided that she wants to do everything that we can to fix us :-D. She told me that she wants to take it day by day, and she wants to stay there so that she can help her family out for at least the rest of the summer. If things haven't changed from how we are right now by the end of the summer, then she will come home and we will be able to get our marriage completely back on track. In the mean time we are keeping ourselves completely open to one another and working, striving to fix what we can while she is away. Thank you all for your support, I will continue to keep this thread updated, and who knows maybe one day we will be able to move it into the marriage success story boards :-D.
We are working things out, I kind of feel like I dont deserve her after causing all of this to happen to our marriage. She insists that she thinks that I am worth it. She feels like she should have never thought that she could love anyone more than me, and that she wants us to work out. We both want our marriage to work out and we are both willing to do whatever it takes to make it work. We are both being completely open and it's very nice to be able to open up and say all of the things that I am feeling to her, and her to me. Thank you all for your advice. I have a question however. I am now struggling with personally not feeling like I deserve my wife. She assures me that I am the person she wants to be with, that I am the man she sees a future with, and that she thinks that I am all she will ever want / need. However I personally feel like idk not attractive, and worthless. Is this natural in this situation? How do I get my self worth back? Any comments or suggestions will be appreciated.
I'm glad to hear she's opening up to you and wants to make things better. You can expect it to be rocky and to challenge your self-worth sometimes. You can cope with that by doing positive affirmations regularly. I talk about dealing with negative thoughts in an article at Positive Power - How to Change Negative Thinking
There were a couple of things I hope you guys will address during your marital counseling, though:
- having a child in order to "receive unconditional love" is unrealistic. Children are not nearly as unconditional as she might think. Also, this thinking shows something about her own expectations and self-esteem, which will need to improve if she's to find happiness with you or anyone else. I hope she'll talk to the MC about these thoughts that she shared with you before the two of you have children (which is guaranteed to create additional strain on any marriage, so make sure you're at a great place for a decent amount of time before trying to get pregnant.)
- I'm not entirely sure she's not staying there to wait and see what develops with her "other" friendship. Be cautious, because if she changes her mind again, she may blame it on you when it really has nothing to do with you and everything to do with her self-esteem.
- If you are feeling like you don't deserve your wife, perhaps you can remind yourself that you can't change the past, and she has let you know that your past behavior didn't deserve her, but you're smart enough to pay that price and become the guy who does deserve her. In other words, you DIDN'T deserve her, but from now on, you'll be the guy who does.
I don't know...I'm glad to hear that she's opening up to you but the fact that she is afraid that she'll never have a chance with her ex again is a very very very bad sign.
Shes no longer afraid of not having a chance with her ex again, she feels like she knows what would have happened had she even tried with him. She feels like she would have been the one putting forth all of the effort in their relationship and he never would have really committed because he never has. She told me the other day that now that she sees that hes really been pissing her off and that she doesnt even think that she will continue talking to him when she comes back home on the 2nd.
Thank you for the advice Kathy i like that way of looking at it. I wasnt the man she needed or that she deserved but I will be doing everything that is in my power to be the man she needs and deserves for the rest of our lives. :-)
Sounds good Adament. But again, I've been burned on this and maybe its just me but I think he needs to be totally out of the equation. I know with her living in the same area her ex lives its kind of a tricky proposition to give her an ultimatem because she can pull the "you are jealous and insecure card" or say you are trying to be controlling. So its delicate. I just know long term the ex-factor still being around isn't a good thing if she is totally 100% committed to you and making the marriage work.
Having a child in order to be loved is one of the worst reasons to have a child. It shows, beyond a doubt, that your wife is not emotionally mature enough to be a good parent. Posted via Mobile Device
I think that we have decided that having a child will be waiting until all of our fears have been resolved about our marriage. My wife will make an excellent mother when she decides that she is ready to have a child. I can assure you that :-). I don't think that unconditional love was ever her sole reason for wanting to have a child, i brought up that reason because i found it the most prudent that she didn't feel like I loved her unconditionally so she was looking for that feeling of unconditional love from whatever source she could. Does that make sense?
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Re: Married for 2 years, Need advice. 
