# help, lol



## stunt101 (Aug 5, 2010)

My wife and I have been together 4 years, married for one. We have a wonderful 2 year old son.
Seven weeks ago, she said she needed space because she was unhappy. I stayed in the spare bed room for about five weeks and even at a buddy’s house for a few nights.

Two weeks ago I told her I couldn't live in limbo anymore and she agreed to work on things. She still doesn't want to talk about our relationship problems, which I tend to bring up once or twice a week.

Background:

I’m 28, almost 29, she’s 31. Neither of us have been married before and have no children outside the marriage.

She bought a house in 2007 with the condition that we would split the bills. 

We were engaged a few months later.

She got prego in December of 2007. Once she had our son, she quit her full time job to be home with our son.

We were married in June of 2009.



At my bachelor party last year, during a lap dance, a dancer unzipped my pants and began, ya know. I stopped it but felt terrible I let it get to this point. I told her about it a couple weeks after we were married and she was obviously very upset. I felt like scum. We worked through it, including going to see a marriage counselor.

Fast forward to now, she says she has a lot of resentment toward me, and not because of the bachelor party. She was upset I had my paycheck going into my own account. I was still giving her money for all the bills and never took a dime out of our joint account. But she wanted our money to be together. Once she wanted a separation, I closed that account and began having my check deposited in our joint account. Something I should have done a year ago.

She also said I wasn’t spending enough time with my son. Her and I agree I was never even close to neglectful but that I could take him more places, etc. She was so right and for the last two months, I've been taking him places all the time and am having the time of my life with it. I guess before I was a bit nervous to go places alone with him, like restaurants or whatever. I've gotten over that now and should have a long time ago.

Her third big complaint is that I continue to smoke (tobacco only). I smoked when I met her but she has always wanted me to quit. Mind you, I typically only smoke 4 or 5 cigs a day but none the less, it's a nasty habit and I need to quit, not just for her but for myself and my son. I had acupuncture done and I’ve been doing real well with that.

I love my wife very much and she says we're working on it. We are sleeping in the same bed, kissing occasionally and spending time together. She also put her wedding ring back on. The thought of it being someone else did occur to me but I can't seem to find anything the computer or her cell. I told her I'm still insecure and want to know I can count on her and she told that will come with time of not fighting. (We’ve been fighting three days a week as of late, mostly about the separation and such).

She still talks about the future and even asked me what u of m football game I want to go to for my b-day, which is in October.

While for the most part I feel she's being honest, I do have some doubts. She works part time as a waitress right now and can afford the house on her own. I work full time and have two side jobs that are some what seasonal. There are some weeks I work 70 hours a week. With that said, her best friend is currently living in Florida (we live in Michigan) and is moving back after the New Year. Her other best friend just went through a bad break up and her lease on her condo is up in November. In talking to some of my friends, they think maybe she's stringing me along until her two girl friends can move in. 

I have made mistakes and am man enough to say I have. The bachelor party incident was a huge f*ck up on my part and I have never given a reason for my wife to think I would do anything like that again.

The other three things (smoking, back account and spending more quality time with my son) I have not only said I would work on but have visibly worked on for her to see. I want this to work, she told me Saturday I'm the love of her life but isn’t showing a whole lot of affection (or sex) because she is still resentful. Any advice would be great. I’m a nervous wreck and have trouble concentrating on anything else but this dilemma.


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## stunt101 (Aug 5, 2010)

I should mention she has agreed to go back to marriage counseling when our finances allow us to.


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## stunt101 (Aug 5, 2010)

geez, typo, I meant to say she CAN'T afford the house on her own.


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## Conrad (Aug 6, 2010)

Stunt,

Sounds like you're trying to fix things. Also sounds like you love her.

Those are both to the good.

Have you ever tried listening to her - without trying to fix?

A good way to think of it is called "listening with your eyes".

You ask her a question... watch her PHYSICAL response.

If she fidgets, you could say, "It seems you're uncomfortable with this subject".

The clinical term for this is empathy. Guys really suck at it and need to learn it. Women constantly say, "He doesn't listen". Of course, you hear her words, but you don't detect their meaning.

When she feels you are "hearing her", transformative change can (and likely will) happen. But not before.

Until you learn to do this, she will keep pushing you away and likely judge your best efforts as "not good enough".

Sorry to be so blunt, but this is how it is.

Conrad


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## stunt101 (Aug 5, 2010)

Conrad- thanks for the feedback, i will try studying her body language.

Hunter-You also make many good points. You're absolutelty right, i should have never let it get to the point it did at my bachelor party. For that split second, i did want it to but then came to my senses. Wanting it for that second makes me feel like a slim ball and I have made that clear to my wife. But I can;t change what happened. I'm an honest person and tell her everything. Just to makes things clear, i have never tried to justify to her that because I did stop it where I did that in turn it made it less bad. 

I will never forgive myself for what i did that night. As far as all the other things she wanted me to change, you're right, in a way I did try to justify why it took X amount of time to change this or that. That was wrong of me, no question.

I'm not going to bad mouth her at all, she's a great gal but I will say that when I mentioned some things I would like her to work on, she didn't want to hear it. I feel that a marriage works when both people are willing to tweak things. She since has listened to my two minor issues (her inability to say sorry when she is in the wrong and how to meet in the middle on parenting issues).

I just want her to be happy and at the end of the day, if that's not gonna be with me, then it wasn;t meant to be. Either way, she has to show me she really wants to work on this too or it won't work.


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## stunt101 (Aug 5, 2010)

one last thing, i have never once blamed my wife for the bachelor party incident. I didn't come home and say. "hey I did this because we don't have enough sex". 

However, I can see where you're coming from where she may partly blame herself becuase of me not owing up to it completely.


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## Conrad (Aug 6, 2010)

Stunt,

Just remember this.

If our focus remains on "changing this and changing that" about the other person, the very things that made us fall in love with them will likely be subject to "change".

Nobody finds someone walking on eggshells to be the slightest bit interesting.


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