I wasn't asking you to push her...

Re-opening the dialogue in a new way...one which says, "I am so sorry for standing in the way of your amends. I've been resenting you from my belief that you don't want to repair the damage you did years ago to our marital debt, that you only want me to earn more. I am so sorry that in not speaking up, supporting you more to earn back, feel great about yourself, I wasn't loving you well. I know you can do both, keep your promise for no latch-key kids and bring in an income for our family. Also, I do realize that there is an amount you've already paid back from saving, not spending, which I hope you also count towards your amends."

Way too long and not nearly as funny as you, Hold. Nonetheless, owning your half is important to who you are...and your choices of what you believe and act from count as much as hers.

Not two dire opposites...an inch taken in real support of the marriage. Whether you feel like it or not.

I'm not saying that MrsHold doesn't self-sabotage, self-hate...because she does...and part of what you see is you in her...does it hurt you to know she hates herself, the wife you love?

Do you tell her you believe in her? (That's what I got from your occasional sharing with her in your post.)

Do say you, too, still seek the Lord, have lots of questions, cannot bring yourself to rely, let go (resentments, fears, reactivity)? Just your half...not to get her to think/believe anything...to know and be known.

Tiny bits...not asking you to leap into rejection...to share because that's your responsibility.

She does reward you for your failures...I read you often to see yourself as if failure were a place on earth where you lived...and she stays, listens, shares your life, anyway. She is the reward...

as are you.

Until you can see yourself as the gift God made you...you will not see her as one.

You don't know her today, right now. You choose not to...and she doesn't know you, right now, either. You do not allow her the opportunity.

Yes, I agree about third parties having clean slates where you do not with her. Doesn't mean you don't own your stuff, too. Not to get her to do anything...to inform.

To stay married "no matter what"...even if you discover you are tearing another human soul to pieces? Would you stay married? If you found yourself unfaithful, having a mistress of Resentment and Fear?

And if you share, ask...and she responds "I've told you enough that I won't"...respond truthfully, "I know what you said in the past. You're new today and I want to know you today."

I don't believe you could say that truthfully...I think you examine yourself new today and something cracks open a bit, a dawn breaks...and then you counsel it closed by seeing all that you didn't like in yourself before, there again. Not gone. Not cured. Still you.

She doesn't get in your spiritual way, nor walk alongside you on the path...do you think financially, you get in the way of her path, consequences, redemption, growth?

LA