# Rebuilding the damaged relationship



## JTL (Dec 14, 2009)

Hey all. As a little background, back in 09 my marriage was damaged badly by me. I was not being totally honest with my wife and was not doing the things that maintain a healthy marriage. There was no infidelity but the end result was the same ( a loss of trust and her heart being broken). We went through counselling (which was, imo, crappy). Since that time i have really tried to change many of the things that put us in that position. I spend more time with her and and am very hands on with our children. I do not keep secrets or keep her out of anything. I have been much more communicative, although, i'm still no chatterbox when it comes to feelings and such. However, i still feel like we're just coasting. She has never, and probably will never trust or love me the same again. She holds grudges and never really believed in forgive and forget. Now, i'm no saint. I still continue to screw up ( just regular stuff, nothing awful) from time to time, but i feel now that every time i do, this whole situation gets thrown in my face again. We had an argument over the weekend ( nothing terrible either) and i was tired and po'd so when she asked to talk to me i responded with "can't you just give me sh*t tomorrow?" Well, this has led to 2 days of her sleeping on the couch and no communication. Along with this comes the whole " it's still the same, you haven't changed etc" etc. To be clear, i have and still tip toe , somewhat, around our relationship. Even when i feel totally in the right and am extremely angry, i bite my tongue. I certainly do not point out her faults as she does mine. I know i caused the initial problem but i feel like i'll be paying for it for the rest of my life with her. If i still didn't love her, i'd be gone. It's hard ( however justified) always being the bad guy. During the trouble we had i looked at seperation and divorce with dread. Now i don't. I certainly wonder if we would both be better off. When she's happy and content, there is no other person i'd rather be with. But when she's not, i am just losing the will to deal with it. Since this all happened i have changed a lot of things to make this work. She changed nothing and still feels like she doesn't have to. In her opinion, i broke it, so i need to fix it. So, now we have 1 person working to maintain it and when that person slips (me), everything goes awry. It will be interesting to see what come of our conversation tonight. It really does infuriate me that she spent the last 2 nights on the couch. I talked to her and said when needed to talk tonight. I know if i apologize, kiss her ass, and take full responsibility, she'll start to cool off. I'm just so tired of doing that when i don't feel it's justified. I don't know if i'm looking for advice or just need to rant!


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## michzz (Jun 6, 2008)

JTL said:


> Hey all. As a little background, back in 09 my marriage was damaged badly by me. I was not being totally honest with my wife and was not doing the things that maintain a healthy marriage. There was no infidelity but the end result was the same ( a loss of trust and her heart being broken). We went through counselling (which was, imo, crappy). Since that time i have really tried to change many of the things that put us in that position.


Do you keep this vagueness in discussing "it" (whatever it is) with your wife? and in MC?

It would be helpful to be candid if you want constructive comments.


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## Jellybeans (Mar 8, 2011)

Sounds like you have a very toxic relationship. Either you guys work it out or it will end in divorce or a bad marriage.


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## JTL (Dec 14, 2009)

http://talkaboutmarriage.com/general-relationship-discussion/9862-advice-wanted.html
The above is a link to my original thread. I wasn't meaning to be vague, it's just i didn't know if i needed to rehash the original issues as they have less to do with our current situation. I know they are certainly related, but the issues that led to our breakdown are different from the issues keeping us from moving forward. As far as my MC comment: it was directly related to our specific experience. I don't believe ours, was the best MC out there. The MC seemed more interested in getting us in/out and getting paid. My wife was also very hesitant to change anything she was doing. For those reasons, MC was not a real great rebuilding tool for us. I will say, though, without it, we probably would have seperated.


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## meson (May 19, 2011)

JTL said:


> We had an argument over the weekend ( nothing terrible either) and i was tired and po'd so when she asked to talk to me i responded with "can't you just give me sh*t tomorrow?"


You have told and shown her that what she has to say is not important and that you didn't care what it was. Nothing injures a relationship more than assuming a context to an action (even if it is correct). I've noticed in several marriages that when the spouses start filling in the context for each action that it is assumed to be negative. This invokes a negative response from the spouse and the bad feeling continue and get worse.

My wife and I went through this cycle and it is hard to break. I started assuming the best with each interaction and statement and would question with positive reactions about what was trying to be communicated. In time she responded the same in the same way and our relationship improved.


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## Conrad (Aug 6, 2010)

When people start doing "worst case scenarios" on each other, it can get ugly really quickly.


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## Jellybeans (Mar 8, 2011)

Ok I just read your first thread that dates back to 12/09 which means this has been an ongoing problem.

To me it souns like you broke all of her trust. It's so hard to get it back once it's gone. You mentioned about having sex with other couples then laying to her about playing strip poker w/ other people while she wasn't htere, and lied about using drugs and lied about making large purcahses and not making her feel wanted/needed.

Yep, that is a lot to deal with.

If you both can't work through this--it may be best to let the relationship go.

I can promise you that she will never trust you as she did before all of this went tdown. I am not saying that to be cynical but think about it: you gave her no reason to believe you because when she asked you to come clean, you lied to her over & over again so as "not to cause more hurt/damage" and then later told your truth. That lie on top of the others was probably the worst part of it all.

If you guys *want* to work this out, get a new MC. You do have a big uphill battle though.


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## Mrs1980 (May 6, 2011)

I am in your wife's position right now-so maybe I can help a bit with my perspective:

I have no proof that my h cheated on me but was having a poss EA with a co-worker. There has been lots of lies and omissions of things involving her and then just normal day to day things as well involving family members ect.

This all came to a head about 7 months ago. Since then, my H is working on trying to be more open esp about work (he has had slip-ups), he has stopped all contact with the poss OW, except work-related, he is trying to be more respectful of me (not gawking at other women in front of me), ect. Has he messed up a bit since then, yes but I do see and appreciate his hard work.

This was all a wake up call to me that I needed to work on our marriage as well. I am exercising, eating healthy lost weight, trying to work less-going to IC for my self esteem issues..

Do we still fight and get sad about this? Yes. My h gets upset frustrated b/c he doesn't know why my bumps happen. I am not even sure why they happen but I can tell you how I feel when they do. I get this overwhelming feeling of insecurity-I never felt that with my h and I have known him for 12 years. I worry that he's going to leave and never come back. I get very insecure and jealous everytime I think back to this other woman, his job, the stupid things he's lied to me about.

Your w has been dealing with those feelings a lot longer than I have but even now-I get the urge to give up-not care anymore. Maybe even get revenge and make him feel the same way.
It's exhausting worrying and trying to control another person's actions-so to me it sounds like she is trying to protect herself from not getting hurt again and just went on auto. That is where I am at right now-Any time my H slips up-I go back to the beginning with the same feelings over again. 

You have to find a way to make her feel secure again.


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## JTL (Dec 14, 2009)

Thanks for the reply's. I certainly do listen to her and value her opinion. To be more specific, we talked or rather she talked and i listened for at least 20 minutes about what i was doing "wrong". I told her i would take some steps to rectify this specifically i would read the book she said i needed to read regarding this specific issue. Still, she could not drop the subject. I was already starting to lose my patience and instead of raising my voice or saying something negative i asked her to drop it until morning. While, in retrospect, it may not have been the best thing to do, i do not like being lectured, repeatedly, about the same thing. As far as regaining her total trust, i believe you are correct. I may never have it. I can live with that to some degree. I do not do things that lead her to a lot of questions about my behaviour. The things that i was doing have stopped and will continue to be stopped. I have no interest in making the same mistakes and being in the relationship the way it was. Having said that, i expect her to understand her role in our relationship. Quite simply: contribute to your own happiness. Be happy with me. Get mad and work out issues without holding grudges and pouting for days on end. A lot of the issues i'm facing with her were always there but i never dealt with them. Now i almost can't because of what i did to her. Listen, i'm of the opinion that no relationship is perfect, there is no soulmate. Relationships take work and you have to let stuff slide. You have to be able to forgive, forget, work it out, and move forward. At any time throughout our entire relationship, if i screwed up, i heard about EVERY time i ever screwed up. I'm getting tired of not winning the war against her unhappiness, which started long before we were married. I'm not blaming her for our present situation, which was mostly my making, but if it had not happened, i would still be dealing with these other issues. I can't make her happy if she is not happy herself. I sent her an email today and asked her to look it over and get back to me so we could get some communication going. No response. The problem is we can get through this hiccup and be ok and then she'll get annoyed with something i've done and drag up all this other baggage. It's tiring.


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## ClipClop (Apr 28, 2011)

So you pass off what you did to harm your marriage because she would never have been happy anyway? 

How about taking your lumps and understanding that you harmed her and that it takes a lot of time to right things. Your frustration sounds selfish. The take it up tomorrow sounds dismissive. When YOU are ready.

I think you lost that vote a long time ago.
_Posted via Mobile Device_


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## JTL (Dec 14, 2009)

Sorry if i came across that way, but no, i do not pass it off or dismiss what i did. I never will. My point was many issues pre-date my big screw up. I take your point about being dismissive. It was brought up before in another post and i certainly agree with it. That is something i will work on myself and with her. She did finally respond to my email saying we'll talk tonight, not via email, which is fine by me. I just wanted to let her know i was thinking about us.


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## lisakifttherapy (Jul 31, 2007)

You took a good first step by admitting you'd damaged the marriage - to be most effective moving forward, you need to show her behaviorally that you messed up and you feel badly about it. 

What's on her is being open to your attempts to show her something different.

These things take time but can be worked through. The work is increasing the emotional safety between you - because right now it appears you don't trust each other at all. This relationship rupture must be healed to move forward.


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## JTL (Dec 14, 2009)

meson said:


> You have told and shown her that what she has to say is not important and that you didn't care what it was. Nothing injures a relationship more than assuming a context to an action (even if it is correct). I've noticed in several marriages that when the spouses start filling in the context for each action that it is assumed to be negative. This invokes a negative response from the spouse and the bad feeling continue and get worse.
> 
> My wife and I went through this cycle and it is hard to break. I started assuming the best with each interaction and statement and would question with positive reactions about what was trying to be communicated. In time she responded the same in the same way and our relationship improved.


OK. So, you're a genius. After we had a good talk, it turns out this is exactly what i was doing. I didn't really see it. I asked her to describe the event exactly how it happened from her perspective and then compared it to mine. Needless to say it was quite a bit different. I believe her version was accurate while mine was "coloured". I guess i've been somewhat overly sensitive to any criticism lately (being a suck!) and have been lashing out even when she has legitimate concerns. She was kind enough to admit that she over reacted due to a combination of pms and quitting smoking, but that was certainly no excuse for my behaviour. We'll keep the lines of communication open, and hopefully be able to avoid this from happening again.


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## meson (May 19, 2011)

JTL said:


> OK. So, you're a genius. After we had a good talk, it turns out this is exactly what i was doing. I didn't really see it. I asked her to describe the event exactly how it happened from her perspective and then compared it to mine. Needless to say it was quite a bit different. I believe her version was accurate while mine was "coloured". I guess i've been somewhat overly sensitive to any criticism lately (being a suck!) and have been lashing out even when she has legitimate concerns. She was kind enough to admit that she over reacted due to a combination of pms and quitting smoking, but that was certainly no excuse for my behaviour. We'll keep the lines of communication open, and hopefully be able to avoid this from happening again.


I figured this out after watching my parents fight when they were visiting us once. Things that nobody would take offense at they were completely insulted with each other. Then I realized that my wife and I did the same things... After working on it for years it has become second nature. Last weekend we were at a campfire with a half dozen other adults and we were not communicating well at all. In front of everyone I took a step back and said "I just don't understand what you want". This clued her in and she took a step back to see how we were not communicating and found a way to phrase what she wanted well so that I was able to help her out. In years past this would have ended up being an huge arguement.


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