Po12345

My marriage is in trouble, obviously, has been for a year (that I knew of) and was likely for quite a bit longer than that.

Here is the thread talking about what I'm going through right now

I'm tired of feeling like the victim, I'm tired of trying to "buy" my wife's affection through good deeds, purchasing items, back rubs, etc, tired of trying to "fix" her. I want to get control over this relationship. I have been a wimpy sack of a man this entire last year since I found out my wife wasn't happy, I need to find a way to break this cycle. I am reading No More Mr Nice Guy and it is a great book, also reading that married man's sex life primer but I think I need to worry more about the "Mr Nice Guy" routine than anything.

Before this last year I was the nice guy that didn't spend enough time worrying about my wife and our relationship, although I'd do anything for her if she asked. But this past year since she gave me the "I don't know if I love you" speech, I've fallen to the point of allowing her to be the center of my emotional needs, instead of having a collection of things (including her of course) that I care about meeting those needs.

My work has suffered, I can't focus, add to that my job is in jeopardy come this fall due to government budget cutbacks (I am an active duty Soldier), and the stress and anxiety is killing me. I currently take Celexa daily, and Ativan/Lorazipam as needed. She has repeatedly said she wants out, that she's "done", and I can't bring up anything we disagree about anymore without her going that route. She has also even re'written the past to somehow gloss over her own poor financial decisions and somehow make those my fault also.

I would say I want to be normal, but obviously my idea of normal was a year ago, and that wasn't working. Please help me, not just for my marriage but more importantly for me... if you've had success kicking the "nice guy" to the curb, I need all the pointers I can get.

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Drover

I'm working on it too. It's years of bad habits to break. Not easy. I'm doing pretty well with it, but yeah, have slipped some too. I use a lot of self-talk to get me through most days with it.

GetTough

Basically it revolves around confidence, maturity, strength, and self-respect. In particular your actions should be PRO-SOCIAL (e.g. warmth, compassion but especially PROTECTIVE) and DOMINANT (NOTE: not in the sense of bullying but in the sense of in-charge, in-control). As well as David DeAngelos and Chase Amante's stuff, there is an absolutely fantastic must read at this link. If you read nothing else, read this. Work on what's called your "inner game" in the PUA/seduction community.

On Dominance

LFC

I'm probably not the best one too give advice but I think the idea is to gain control of yourself and not the relationship .

Po12345

Holy crap, that guy is wild haha. I don't think I could ever be like that but I do like his approach to 'asking' his wife to do things.

One question for you guys, how do I react to my wife disagreeing with me or not wanting to do something, or saying "no" to something I want to do? Right now we are on total eggshells around one another, even with her away for 2 weeks I want to somehow get that fixed. This has been a major source of her discomfort with me because I've been rather emo about shxt and I'm tired of being like that.

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Po12345

I realize that but I do want to save my family too, I believe that both goals are quite attainable if I regain some focus and control over my life. Believe me, I am only now truly seeing where I've made some major blunders in my life, at 39 years old I am going to fix them.

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GetTough

If you can do (whatever it is) on your own, just do it, regardless of her. Don't even ask. If you need your wife's permission or she has some control, again don't even ask unless you absolutely have no choice. You're not needy, remember? You need NOTHING from her, that's the ideal you're aiming for. She is leaving the marriage and disrespecting you. You do not withhold your cooperation out of spite you do it because you need to respect yourself and not reward her behavior. Don't argue with her. Have minimum contact. She has checked out, make her work for your time and attention, i.e. make her initiate all communication. Do the 180. Being nice WILL backfire. I go by the handle GetTough because it means something. It's meant to help guys in your position. Do everything you can to feel like you actually WANT her out of your life. Paradoxically that is your best chance of getting the choice back.

Being on total eggshells around each other is NOT a bad thing in your situation. For two reasons: 1) She needs to feel uncomfortable for what she is doing and 2) You need to show you are strong enough to handle the discomfort. Say nothing to her. Embrace the discomfort. (btw this is a walk in the park compared to the sh1t storm that you might have to embrace in future weeks). Do NOT try to fix ANY of this, or fix anything to do with your relationship with her, do NOT start a convo with her about ANYTHING. Make her chase you for stuff NOT vice versa. Then reject EVERYTHING she wants except that which is clearly in your interests. Make it clear to her that you want nothing but space from her. Remember those things! Brush her off until she decides (without ANY prompting from you) that she wants to work on the marriage again. That is your BEST and possibly ONLY chance. You have to REALLY stand up for yourself and take issue with her actions by STRONGER actions, not words.

Po12345

Whew, GetTough... okay, I will work hard on that. The only rough part of that is that it is kind of what got us into trouble in the first place a little over a year ago, I quit talking to her for 48 hours because I was so pissed off at her about something, and right after that she told me she didn't feel like she was in love with me anymore.

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Deejo

By coming up with a personal code of conduct and following it.

By letting my wife go. I could NOT be the man I want to be or have the relationship I want to have ... with her. Tragic. Sad. True.

Getting comfortable with being the kind of guy that I used to openly NOT want to be; assertive, confident, calmly confrontational when necessary, and at ease with expressing my desires and expectations.

Completely re-writing my internal script for how I perceive and interact with women.

And throughout all of it, I don't feel like I changed who I am. I changed how I behave. I learned the behaviors that made me a NG, so I chose to unlearn them and pick up some new ones.

Took about 2 years, to feel like I had truly internalized it.

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"I figured out they were serious eventually but was thinking it was ridiculous. I wanted to kick them in the balls." - Trenton

anonymouskitty

And this, gentlemen, is exactly how you go from being a nice guy to a tough cookie

Po12345

*sigh*

I know that is an outcome i have to prepare for, not accept, but just be ready just in case. I do not know where everything went wrong, I just know we've gone way down a road we should have never found ourselves on. So getting back means going in a direction that will be hard.

Oddly enough Deejo, Mumford and Sons is one of my wife's favorite bands.

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Deejo

Will be honest with you, based upon some of the language you have quoted her as using ... ILYBNILWY, never was, and have been very unhappy for a long time are all tried and true hallmarks of an affair. That is something you may also need to prepare for and accept.

You are thinking of ways to save your marriage. She is going away and thinking about ways to leave it.

Don't delude yourself. You can't 'win' her back. Not now. And particularly not if she is focused on someone else. All you really can do? Demonstrate that you are quite capable of conducting your life without her.

At the point in time when the woman you love screws up the courage to tell you that she doesn't love you, and moreover, questions if she ever did; more often than not, she already has your replacement in mind. Sounds like your spouse has already covered this ground. I don't say that with bitterness.

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"I figured out they were serious eventually but was thinking it was ridiculous. I wanted to kick them in the balls." - Trenton

GetTough

If she wants to talk, just listen coolly. Anything that's obvious you take issue with (which will be nearly everything she says these days)... or if she's just wasting your time, just end the discussion, or don't respond. Don't initiate much if at all. End conversations that are obviously going nowhere quickly. Just refuse to have discussions that are not in your interests, which are going to be nearly all discussions from this point forward. SO... the sooner you start brushing her aside, refusing to get drawn into argument, the better. Remember, if she wants to talk to fix things you'll know about it soon enough. It is near impossible to find anything to say that will change her mind right now. Nearly everything else you feel like you want to say to her at the moment just damages your interests. Anything you say to help her destroy your family loses her respect for you. Anything you say that doesn't help her just gets you into an argument.

Drover

I'm doing XXX. You're welcome to come along.

Conrad

If you need a catch phrase it's this.

You were not sent to this earth to own HER chaos.

Leave the long-winded pleasing explanations of things at the curb. Talk less. Do more.

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"Forgive or Re-Live"

-AFEH