# How to deal with the anger from separation before reconciling?



## KnnNike

Hello, everyone. This is my first post on these forums, but I have been spending quite a bit of time on the site in recent weeks. Let me first give a little bit of personal background: I am 24, and am currently pursuing a PhD in engineering at a prestigious American University (which, needless to say, has introduced quite a bit of stress in my life to begin with). My wife and I have been married for 3 years (we married as undergraduates in college, though we had dated since high school).

My wife is currently experience a "major depressive episode", and has been for the last several months. A large contributory factor (likely the most significant) was the fact that the past year has seen me extremely busy and stressed out over school, to the point where I was neglecting our marriage quite a bit (many hours away from home, preoccupied by classes, research, etc. most of the rest of the time). We had met with a marriage counselor twice before my wife abruptly announced that she was moving out. She didn't feel that I was treating her with the respect or love that she deserved, which is fair, given my aforementioned external stressors, and the fact that said stress would often make me irritable and impatient.

It has been about 1.5 months since she moved out, and while we haven't had much communication since then, we both fully intend to attempt reconciliation at our relationship, which will likely include extensive marital counseling once she is up to it. Make no mistake, this time apart has been devastating for me as well - I have lost a significant amount of weight, and have had to re-learn many of the skills of living as a bachelor. My research and classwork have suffered as a result, and I am still hit with intermittent periods of overwhelming sadness.

I want nothing more than for us to get back together and take another shot at this; I have been seeing a counselor on my own, as well as reading a number of marriage and relationship books. I have been able to identify a number of areas to improve my work habits and reduce my workload (I started to do this before my wife left), so I think we can have an honest shot at making this work the second time around.

Ultimately, my question for those on here is how to deal with my underlying anger and frustrations about the separation process, when the time comes for us to attempt reconciliation? I have had to live, essentially, in poverty since my wife left (she has a full-time job, and makes about 3 times what I do). She rented another apartment, leaving me with the rent and utilities for our current house, along with my food/clothing/school expenses. She has been paying most of the joint bills (e.g., car loan, cell phones), but I am very upset that our finances have essentially been devastated by her decision to leave. Besides the fact that she is spending an extra $500 per month on an apartment that we could be saving, not to mention utilities and other duplicate expenses, I have had to empty out the investment accounts that I had started to set aside for our future, just to support myself. We had planned on taking a number of trips in the next few years before we started having children, and now that we will essentially be starting over as "broke", I don't see us being able to do any of that.

My wife has told me that she is sorry that her decision to move out has "inconvenienced" me, but that her mental health and well-being should be my primary concern (they are, but those "secondary" concerns are hard to ignore). The finances are not the only thing that upsets me - there are other items, such as the fact that she decided to move out after just two counseling sessions, and despite her own admittance that I was beginning to "make some progress". Since then, I have been able to come to terms with most of this, and I realize that forgiveness and understanding (along with accepting responsibility for my actions) is the most prudent course of action, but I have occasional periods where I will become upset when I think about all of the pain and difficulty that could have been avoided by her not moving out, and I want her to understand how I feel.

Obviously, hanging on to this pain and anger is not conducive to the reestablishment of a healthy, loving marriage. Since my behavior (by my own admittance) was likely the major root cause of my wife's depression, do I just shove the pain and anger deep down to where it can never come out, and accept that this is the punishment I have been dealt for my previously selfish action? 

Ideally, I would want her to understand my own pain and suffering, accept that we will be facing a number of challenges that were caused by her moving out, apologize to me for that pain, but also know that I accept most of the responsibility for the mess our relationship is in. However, I don't see how I can broach this topic in a way that doesn't make me sound like a self-centered ass. Or does the fact that I am feeling this way inherently make me such an ass?

I suppose, in summary, this post is really about how to forgive someone's actions when you're the root cause. Any insight or suggestions that people can provide on this matter would be appreciated.


----------



## Omegaa

Hi

So I am assuming that you two have a joint account from which your wife is drawing money out of? Does she work?

It's her who wanted to move out and I do not see why you continue to pay towards the rent which you do not sound like you can afford.

Have you thought about closing the joint account at this stage as she moved out?

You also said that she's in a major depressive mode but knowing she managed to move out (which takes a lot of organization and motivation), not sure if she actually is "depressed" that much?

Just a thought..


----------



## KnnNike

Omegaa,

Thanks for the response. My wife was diagnosed by our MC before she moved out (the MC termed it "major depressive episode"), and she also saw a psychiatrist who put her on antidepressants, so the depression is definitely legit. She had her parents come up and help her move out; this is another source of my anger/resentment, because she didn't tell me that she was leaving until after she had called her parents to come and help move (we live 8 hours away from them, so they were already on the road when she had the conversation with me - I was so angry that I just left and refused to help her move at all).

You're right, I cannot strictly afford the house we live in by myself, but since we moved here a year ago, I have put a lot of time and effort (outside of my studies) into fixing it up (mostly landscaping and outside work, which is a hobby of mine). It means a lot to me, and especially since she expressed desire to eventually reconcile before she left, I cannot yet bring myself to give it up and start over at some new place.

We had a joint checking account, but the day before she told me that she was leaving, she took out half of the money, and put it in a separate account at another bank in town. She could still technically withdraw money from the joint account, but all I can say is that if you knew her, you'd know that this is not any concern for me. She does work, actually at the same university, and because about 70% of our joint income was from her, this has been all the more difficult.

So am I really the only one who has unresolved anger/resentment towards their spouse that needs to be dealt with before we reconcile? I know the best course is forgiveness, but can anyone give me some practical advice or words of wisdom, preferably about how you personally overcame these negative emotions?


----------



## This is me

"I suppose, in summary, this post is really about how to forgive someone's actions when you're the root cause."

I think forgiveness is simply that and does not matter where it comes from.

You mentioned her depression which I would use as your internal reasoning to forgive. Depression, Mid-Life Crisis and other mental issues are an illness. If someone got cancer and affected your plans would you forgive them?

Same should be true for mental glitches.

Get you both into MC, marriage workshops or something that is working toward R when you can. It really helped us reconnect and fix the glitch.

Be the bigger person!

Wishing you well.


----------

