I have not been here in some time and have a lot to say. This goes into a lot of different places. I started this on Saturday night. Fair warning, it has a lot of me in it. I'm telling you what I'm doing/feeling. Maybe I need to do more of something, less of something else. I really don't know.
I am in a better place right now. Understandably, my BW is not. She is still in the same very place she was after DD. I have been working on myself a lot. During this year and 8 months I have seen 8 different therapists. They have all told me the same thing. 1) I only have control over myself. I can’t change my BW. I can’t make her love me, forgive me as I can’t control her thoughts and feelings. 2) I am going to need to forgive myself.
Because of statement one, I have been taking care of myself. More focused on bettering myself, self care. I’m up at 4:30 every morning to work out, eating super healthy. I meditate, I pray. I have become a better person, an even better father, and my wife won’t agree with this, but I feel I have become an even better husband. I have been so consistent. I’ve been on top of everything. I’ve been so giving. Trying to just make sure she is as happy and as comfortable as she can be, considering the position I have put her in and the destruction I have caused.
Number 2 was a struggle, but I needed to be able to forgive myself in order to help get myself out of my depression. Out of the mindset that I’m a worthless human being, that I’m a failure. It has helped a lot. I no longer make it about myself, I don’t get destroyed when my BW yells at me, tells me she hates me, is angry at me, or rejects me. It has made me think clearer so that I can focus more on her and what she needs. Does that make sense?
My wife has still not done much work on herself. I’ve been told by some on here that she doesn’t have to. She saw a therapist for about 4 sessions. She fell into depression after DD and started seeing a doctor 6 months later. She only saw him those 4 times and said that he wasn’t helpful. She would tell me about all the tools he was providing her and I was just amazed. They sounded so good. I was able to see him several months later, only because my wife agreed she was never going to go back to him again. I have been dealing with depression for almost 23 years. This guy was able to get me to a place I have never been before. The tools and resources this guy provided me were life changing and just what I needed to change the stupid things I have been telling myself for the past 23 years. He was the one that was finally able to get me to forgive myself.
It's true what they say, that therapy only works if the person wants to be helped, healed. My wife is not there. We just had the same conversation we had about a year ago.
We are out of town. I brought her to a concert to see one of her favorite bands. It was amazing! We both had a really good time. We came up to the hotel room after the show and I asked her if we could be intimate. Before I could finish asking, she said no, wasn’t interested. She began to tell me how much she hates me, how angry she is at me, that I’m a liar and a cheater, she went down the list.
Let me jump into the sex part for a bit. We have not had sex since New Years. I took her to Mexico for a week and we had sex everyday on that trip. I have asked a handful of times since then only to be rejected. I will not lie, it has been very tough. I don’t even know if I would have been able to perform if she had said yes. I’ve been having some difficulty performing on my own. Masterbation doesn’t work. I can work on it for a very long time, and it just doesn’t ...work. I’m only 38 and shouldn’t be having troubles, but anxiety kicks in, thought just start whirling in my head, i start feeling like less of a man, and then nothing.
Back to the conversation, she went on to tell me that she still wants a divorce. She has told me before that she wants a divorce but she just couldn’t afford to right now. She’s also told me that she doesn’t want to because of our young children. Whatever the excuse is, I’ll take it. I don’t want her to divorce me. I want her to continue to be my wife, I love her. This can be very confusing to me. Yes she tells me she wants a divorce, but we are also planning on our future together. Just last week we decided we are painting the outside of our home. We’ve been wanting to do this for several years now. This will cost over 20,000$. Also, next year we are taking a trip to Fiji and another to Disney world a couple of months after that. Then the following year I’m taking the family on a week trip to a resort in Mexico. We have so many plans and talk about the future.
At the concerts last night, we ran into an old friend from my old life. I was a profession musician for over 20 years. I walked away from all of that the beginning of the year. She was quick to tell my friend how great this was for us now. How great it was to have me home every weekend and no longer touring on the road. How we are able to be together more and do more as a family. It was genuine too, I could tell she meant it. Those are not words that would come out of a person wanting to divorce me. Yet hours later, she told me she did.
To be honest, I haven’t been doing much to show her I love her in several months. I admitted to her that I actually fear her and fear upsetting her. I have been scared to ruffle her feathers so I have stayed out of her way. And when I say stay out of her way, I just mean that I’m in the background taking care of everyone and everything. I went from taking care of 50% of the duties at home to over 90%. So staying out of her way is, she doesn’t like to greet me when she sees me, so I stay out of her way. She doesn’t like to see me in the evenings so I stay out of her way. I don’t say good morning or good night, or have a good day. I do a lot of staying out of her way. I stopped talking about US only because it angers her. I don’t mind talking about anything, I am totally open, honest and truthful, but she decided that she doesn’t want to hear anymore. So tonight I told her that I’m not going to hide from her or fear her anymore. I won’t love bomb since it seems like that isn’t a good thing, but I’m going to tell her how I feel.
She just woke up. I said good morning.
I wrote this part later.
She got ready and asked me to take her to breakfast. We walked to a nice place down the street. She was acting like last night’s conversation didn’t happen. She was being really friendly., I liked it. During breakfast we talked about the trips we have planned next year. She mentioned that she wanted to see a concert the was happening next year. It’s happening 4 states away. My extended family lives there and she came up with the idea of visiting them while we are there. Even taking the kids with us so they can finally meet my grandmother. It made me cry. I’ve told her before that my grandmother probably wasn’t going to survive this year. It meant a lot to me that she would think of that. After breakfast, we walked a farmers market. I bought her some gifts. I got her this pieces of hair jeweler that an artist hand made. She loved it. Then we drove back home to pick up our kids. After we picked them up, she asked me to stop at a Halloween store where she bought us a bunch of stuff for our next Halloween.
TL;DR
1 year and 8 months later, we are still on the rollercoaster. Those that have been on it longer, have you been where we are?