Orchid,
Nope not a tree guy, unless having a tree falling on you makes you a tree guy <img border="0" title="" alt="[Smile]" src="images/icons/smile.gif" />
Yes there has been a lot of fog. Don't know how to deal with that. I'm guilty of it too.
I keep reading and hearing I need to take care of me first.
Last week I started AD's. I think, it's helped a bit already. I'm not "losing it" like I was before. And TRUST ME I was losing it big time! I still feel and think the same things (the hurt, the pain, the loss, and the fear), I'm just not out of my head.
WW is starting to warm up to me since I've not been so crazy. While I still have my moments, she sees I'm trying.
This is where I'm confused. It seems so backwards. At least to me. I would think if I was in the same situation I would be falling over myself backwards to show my wife that she could trust me, that I was commited to her, that I had made a mistake.
But, in reality, it's me showing the commitment, apologizing, trying in small ways and large to make our relationship better (mostly through meeting her EN's).
That maybe, even at this early stage, why I'm pulling my hair out.
A friend told me yesterday, I have to forgive myself first.
Yes I'm hard on myself for this whole situation. I feel I drove her to this. Mostly through neglect, drifting apart because of small children. Letting the romance die. Substituting quickie sex for a quiet moment alone when the kids were gone or otherwise occupied. Calling that a relationship....making the false assumption that "we were strong enough to weather this stage of our lives..."
I do look at this as an opportunity. I see so many people who drift apart, let the love go out of their marriages, replace it with solo activities. Not affairs. But, you know, isn't that the same? If you aren't going to have love, real love, real romance, those wonderful things....what's the point.
My mother said recently, everyone deserves to be loved. I take that to define everything. All my needs for affection, romance, communication, lust, respect,......everything!
I worry that my wife will not have those feelings for me.
I loved the things she used to do for me. She was so caring. These days, She seems bitter. And while we've through the bowels of hell, and she may have good reason to be bitter. I so much want that fun person back.
Conversation is still forced.
In the book by Nick Sparks: The Wedding he talks about that, how difficult conversation can be...
I hate that. My wife and I would talk for hours. Now, a two minute conversation is all that is needed. Get our point across and shut up.
Some of it is due to knowing each other so well. But, part of it is, well, I don't want to force things, neither does she in that respect. She doesn't want to make conversation, for conversation's sake. Nor do I. However, I find myself making mental notes of things we can talk about later. Topics of conversation that we would both have input on.
Aside from our children, we do have other things to talk about. She and I used to talk about her job, however, since the A, I don't like to hear about it, since it was with a co-worker.
She like to talk about work, sort of helped her to wind down after a long day. That is really hard for me now. Not sure sometimes I can deal with it. And sometimes it is a trigger.
I hate the triggers......Sometimes it is something simple, passing a person in the street, others, a comment.
I would like to give her the space she needs to get out of the fog. To get over OM. But, that is really hard. She does see OM at work.
What a lot of this amounts to for me is quiet time. I don't like a lot of that these days.
I don't know how to work on myself during those times.
I don't know how to make plan A work for ME. There was a good explaination somewhere round here, I can't seem to find it again.
I do want it to work for me. Not so much to my benifit regarding WW, more, to put me in the frame of mind that I need to be with WW such that when the time comes, we can work on our marriage again. SO I know when that time has come. So I can recognize the signs that the fog has lifted. That WW is really ready. Not me forcing her to do something she doesn't want to do.
I don't really know what to do, or how to act. I do keep doing what I've always done at home, cook, clean, care for children. And I've added to that trying to meet WW's EN's. But it's a matter of not forcing the issue I guess.
