Thanks to anyone who can give advice

Been married about 19 years, have 3 kids.
For maybe the last 5 years (not exactly sure how long), our marriage has been a struggle. I feel like I have worked really hard to make things better. I feel like I have consciously done things to fulfill her needs and to show my appreciation. But so often, she seems to twist things and create arguments and somehow make me look like a bad guy. Many, many times I explained that I was doing specific things because I was trying to help and be considerate. So often I felt incredibly frustrated because I was trying to build our marriage up but she was determined to make it worse. As far as intimacy, I tried to be affection in many ways (not just sex). But she always seemed to be pushing me away, not accepting any affection. When it came to sex (even if only every 7 days or so), she was avoiding me. It was like I was always forcing it and she did not express any desire. After feeling so frustrated, periodically I would get angry. However, I have never shown any physical anger, never called her names or berated her. I just verbally expressed my frustration, showing my emotions. Quite often, I said that our marriage could be much better and that we should go see a good Christian psychologist. She always backed off from that idea, saying that if I worked harder at fulfilling my responsibilities, then things would be ok in our marriage. I needed to be more involved with the kids, needed to get more stuff done around the house, needed to spend more time with her. I feel like I’ve always admitted my faults and have always agreed that I can be a better husband. After having these discussions, I expressed a desire and willingness to work harder. However, our marriage never really got any better. In fact, things were getting worse and she was getting more withdrawn. I felt like our marriage was like a frog in a pan of water slowly getting boiled to death.

About 12 months ago, I realized I had to take a more drastic and definitive approach.
I found this marriagebuilders.com web site and decided that I needed to follow the guidelines. I decided to do everything I could do to make myself a better marriage partner. I spent a lot of time reading all the articles, thinking about how to apply in my marriage. By myself, I saw a Christian Psychologist and explained my situation and sought his advice on how I could change.

After about a month of working extra hard, I told my wife that I was very serious about having a better marriage. I indicated that I loved her and that I had been doing a lot of things the last couple of years thinking that I was showing my support and appreciation towards her. But I agreed that there were ways I could improve. Also mentioned that I had seen the Christian psychologist and was willing to accept advice. I printed out an “Emotional Needs Questionnaire” and asked her to write down her needs so that I could put my energies into supporting her in appropriate ways. I also told her that I felt that she was always pushing me away, avoiding me, and saying things to make me feel like I was not trying and didn’t care. Basically, I said that I wanted to express my love towards her in many ways and that I wanted to feel loved in return.


I studied her responses to the questionnaire and worked at them very diligently. I completely avoided getting frustrated or showing any disapproval, anger, etc. My determined mindset was to see the psychologist and sort of dump on him my thoughts and feelings. After about 5 months into my new approach (work on myself), I still could not see substantial change in my wife responses. Much of the stuff I was doing seemed to make her more frustrated. One of her questionnaire responses was to spend more time with her. But she was actually avoiding me more in a lot of ways. She expressed (in questionnaire) a desire for me to talk to her more and get to know her feelings better. But during those 5 months she did not want to share her feelings and seemed to be avoiding me in situations where we would talk. Going on walks, she would not want to touch me. I have always given her hugs in the morning. But she would never come over and initiate a hug.

Finally after the 5 months, I told her that I did not know what was going on because our marriage really wasn’t getting better. I asked her if she would see the psychologist (alone) and try to explain things to him on how I could be a better husband and if she would accept advice on how to better respond to me (to feel my love).

After she saw the psychologist, I went in he basically said I was doing everything I could to improve things. My wife pretty much confirmed to him that I was doing the things I said I was. However, my wife was expressing nebulous thoughts about how I was not reaching deep into her soul. The psychologist said that what my wife was throwing up smokescreens, not being truthful, that something else going on. My wife was inventing reasons for why I was at fault for our bad marriage.

I finally read a book on “Verbal Abuse” and realized that my wife was constantly creating arguments. Whenever I would offer to do something for her or ask her for her thoughts, she would twist things around and create an argument. I was totally floored reading this book that described aspects of our marriage so clearly. Afterwards, I avoided getting sucked into her manipulation, avoiding arguments and saying anything negative. Many times I would simply hug her and say that I wanted to help her and that I had no desire to get into an argument.

After about a week of my totally avoiding arguments, she realized that I had caught on to one of her tricks. She finally said that she was WITHDRAWN from me. I asked her why and for how long. She said “for about 17 years”. I questioned if it could have been 17 years. She then indicated “about 10 years”. After further discussion, she indicated “about 5 years”. She said that she felt that I had totally given up on the marriage and there was nothing that she could do except to withdrawal. I said that I had definitely not given up and always expressed a willingness to improve and even had wanted to see a psychologist for help. She was the one who never wanted to get professional help. I told her that I agreed that she was profoundly WITHDRAWN because no matter what I did, she could not see any good in it. I reiterated that I felt it was wrong for either of us to be withdrawn because it is choosing to give up. She again said that she had no choice.

I did not know whether to believe her about what was really going on (maybe an affair or an emotional affair) I read another book about children of alcoholics (as her parents are alcoholic). I learned that some children of alcoholics compensate by becoming high achievers. It seemed to me that this fit my wife’s description well. She tends to overachieve in her work and puts in 50 hours/week into her job that pays for only 30 hours/week. She gets her affirmation by doing a job better than anybody and getting appreciation from the boss and coworkers. Of course people that learn to get love by this compensating mechanism can have a difficult time in marriage where love is freely exchanged. I talked to my wife about this book and asked her how much it described her. I tried to be sensitive and expressed a willingness to love her regardless of her background (we all have different backgrounds and ways to compensate). She seemed to agree that it did describe her background and how she operates. However, she did not want to talk about it too much and has not really done any reading from one book that I showed her (and read thru a few chapters with her). She did not bring up this issue with the psychologist.

Throughout all of this, I have expressed a desire for her to be totally honest with me so I can be a part of her life. Sometimes I have asked her about her feelings and thoughts and only after quite a bit of prodding on my part does she say much (usually a minimal amount). From what she says I am never sure if she is just going along with what I am suggesting so she can get me off her back. It usually seems that I am playing “detective” to get to know her better. I am not the least bit convinced that what she says is honest. So far my gut feelings have been correct. I always felt that she was playing verbal games to make me look bad while she chose to be withdrawn. This all turned out to be true. At the psychologist’s office, from what I can tell she has said very little.

About a month ago we were on a pacific island beach vacation and I was questioning her about work related stuff. She had quit a job and was going to wait a little while before applying for another. I had asked if she would see the psychologist a few more times to talk about getting overly involved with work and maybe if that was a strong negative force in our marriage. She had not talked about applying for the job for about a month but I suspected that she was actively interviewing. On vacation, I asked what was happening and she said not much. Quizzing her some more she said she drove to the place to see how far it was. After quite a bit more quizzing, it finally comes out that she interviewed for the job. She finally (after more prodding) admitted that she was avoiding talking to me about it. I brought up the fact that I expressed support for her getting a satisfying job, but that I only asked that she would first be willing to discuss with the psychologist what I thought were issues. I just wanted to make sure the job started off in a healthy way.

On the positive side, my wife is a lot more willing to meet my needs for love and affection. However, I do not feel like I really know my wife’s thoughts and everything she says I question. So often it seems to be a struggle for her to show affection (nonsexual) and consideration for my feelings. Too often she still seems to avoid me. There seems to be something inside of her that makes it more difficult than easy. I believe that if she were willing to open up, then it could be worked out. I have always tried to convey support, acceptance and desire to help.

Sometimes I have wondered if my wife feels no attraction toward a husband because of a sexual orientation issue. On our island vacation last month, we would go on long beach walks and found long stretches of topless bathing (my wife set this vacation up, not me). Needless to say, there were many beautiful topless (European?) women. My wife’s eyes appeared to be strongly attracted to these topless women. From the way she was searching out and looking at these women I have to question wheter my wife is more attracted to women that a husband.

I have not read much about married gay women but am aware of the fact that some gay women have no attraction to their husband and eventually leave their marriage in pursuit of a gay lifestyle. If my wife is gay, I do not think she would leave but I do often wonder if she simply is not “wired” to be attracted to a husband.

I have never verbalized these thoughts (about gayness) to her or anyone. However, I am encouraging her to see the psychologist about issues of honesty.

Thoughts anyone?
Thanks

Holy cow! Where to begin.

My wife of 10 years came from a family that was rather emotionally abusive. My mistake was trying to "fix her". I thought I was trying to help her have a more positive outlook and find happines. But that's not how she took it. Over the years she became more withdrawn, until she had an affair. I've know of problems in our marriage, but didn't know how to approach it. I think you're on the right track, but if you think she'll open up easily, you're in for a wait. The Emotional Needs questionare was a great first step, but once your spouse withdraws, it takes a while to lure them out. Dr. Harley discusses this in Surviving an Affair. I haven't checked out the book his needs her needs.

Did you two used to have marital passion? Has she ever before provided you affection and love? If so, I would think there's potential for it again.

Regarding the gay question, I can't answer that. Someone else will need to tackle that question.

Do you like your psychologist. Does he or she provide positive input, or just nod and take notes? Has your wife been checked out for other issues like depression?

You can't do more than show love and support. If you're doing that. The rest is up to her. Frustrating isn't it?

Hang in there. You're on the right track, but this is tough for guys I think. <img src="/ubbt/images/graemlins/smirk.gif" alt="" />

Where to begin indeed.

I guess the best place to start would be to welcome you, scubadiver, to the boards side of this site. I'm gonna assume you've lurked some and pretty much know your way around.

It seems like you're pretty much on top of things. From your description of the way you handled things, I'm thinkin, "Man, I wanna be like him'. I applaud your efforts so far, and your perseverance.

As I read I make mental notes for my replies. As I read your post, I identified very closely with many of your issues and had advice formulated for each one, but you beat me to the punch each time.

For example:


And then;


Here's my situation in a nutshell, so you can get the context of my advice.

Despite my other faults, I am, like you, a kind, gentle, introspective and desiring-to-improve kind of man. And like you, I've been living with a wife in 'withdrawal' for many many years now. There has never been any abuse of any kind between us and I think we've raised our voices in anger maybe once in our 10yr marriage.

My own affair in '99 made that situation worse and for the next 5 years things things deteriorated steadily, complicated by that and other issues.

2003 ended with my wife having an affair with our house-mate.

2004 started with me as a single father trying to pick up the pieces in a new town.

My wife's actions have been EXTREMELY uncharacteristic, and there have been times where I've barely been able to even believe what's been going on. I would have said I didn't know her except for the fact that I have a history of making insane decisions when faced with hopelessnes (a factor associated with withdrawal) and in the light of that, her apparent insanity (abducted by aliens) made perfect sense. Especially since I could understand why she was in withdrawal.

Oh yeah, her affair partner was a woman. And previous to this my Wife was pretty much a vehement hetero. In many ways this makes sense because no matter how 'abducted by aliens' she ever was, I think that an affair with another man would be impossible for her. Anyway, it's complicated.

We are living together again, but she is still very deep in withdrawal.

Now I certainly don't have the track record you have, but in my own very flawed way, I have been giving it my all since after my affair and subsequent joining of MB.

My advice to you is to stop listening to the answers your wife is giving you. It's clear that the story changes as you rise to meet each challenge she sets before you. It's clear that she'll only give you the information you drag out of her and even that you can't be sure of.

So stop listening to her words and look deeper.

The thread title is 'Do not really know my wife.' I submit that you know her better than you think and that she's not acting like the person you know.

Something is going on in her head and I think you will have to figure it out on your own.

My train of thought has been completely derailed by the awakening of the rest of the household here and subsequent burst of activity. I gotta sign off now, but will come back when I get a chance.

dewt

SleeplessNseattle

Thanks for your reply.Really appreciate your insights.

Regarding marital passion, I do believe it is a strong possibility of returning as it was earlier in our marriage.

I really respect our psychologist and the insight he provides. I think he has a very healthy view of marriage which agrees well with views of Dr Harley.

Sometimes my wife does get a little depressed. I do not believe she has any major issues with depression. I think its more related to her lack of sharing herself personally and getting help from others.

Another thing is that her father is gay but she never shared that with me before we got married but kept it a secret. I can understand being unconfortable bringing up and talking about such sensitive familily issues but it all makes me wonder if she picked up similar sexual tendacies. One I tried talking to her father about his gay lifestyle, how he was driving his wife insane by daily cheating on her. He went verbally beserk, swearing and storming out of the house. Sometimes I talk to my wife about how she can be more honest with me regarding how I can interact with her better. Even though I think I am being gentle in my requests, she can get extemely angry, start slaming things on the table, slam the bedroom door and lock herself in for several hours. She admits that she is a private person but to me it is way beyond that. She is heavily guarding some issue we have not openly discussed.

Thanks to anybody who responds to this.
scubadiver

Your wife sounds just a typical withdrawn adult child of an alcoholic. We feel very uncomfortable with intimacy and are not used to it. We will withdraw if we think we can get away with it.

We also often use verbal abuse to comminucate with our spouses, because it keeps them pushed away and keeps us safe. I believe you are right that she manufactures greivances to keep you at arms length and to justify her withdrawal. The problem is that you can't change her. Only she can change herself and she won't do that unless she is motivated to do so.

I put my last H through 20 years of hell and nothing worked for him. He begged, pleaded, tried so hard to get me to open up. He even left me once in 1995, hoping that would wake me up. I would only change long enough to get him to shut up so I could go back to my old ways.

He eventually left me for a woman who would meet his needs in 1999. I am remarried and I was motivated by the loss of that marriage to meet my new H's needs. I have gone through dramatic changes and do experience intimacy in my marriage, but it took some earth shattering, trauma to get me to that point.

Anyway, I don't know what the answer is for you, but she can change if she chooses. You can't change her, though. I would suggest a good starting place would be Adult Children of Alcoholics meetings. She will be so much happier if she learns to overcome her fear of intimacy. But she needs to know that many women like her lose their marriages over this.

Thanks dewt for your thoughts and advice.

Hope everything works out in your marriage. Looks like you are giving it everything you can. Hang in there and your perseverance should pay off.

I agree with your advice to stop listening to just the individual answers my wife gives me. I try to take everything with a big grain of salt and weigh everything in context to figure out what is consistent, sincere, freely given, and makes sense. As to looking deeper, I am much more conscious of things she says, where she goes, her cell phone usage, computer usage, ways she looks at people, etc etc.

I also agree that I know my wife much better than I did 9 months ago when I was very gullible about her play with words and my feelings. Much of what she says now I understand is part of some compensating mechanism she’s lived with her whole life.

What you said about your wife’s affair with a woman made me think about my wife’s tendency to negative things (usually very subtle) about men in marriages. I sometimes sense that my wife in general shows less respect for men than women. I believe her father emotionally deprived her. Even now, she will only see him once a year, even though he lives only about 30 miles away.

Thanks again dewt for your thoughts and advice.
scubadiver

Hey, thanks for your reply.

Yeah, this is tough, but perseverance is pretty much the only option. And if it doesn't pan out for the marriage, the journey has great significant value on a personal level, so I'm covered either way. <img src="/ubbt/images/graemlins/wink.gif" alt="" />

God bless you and your efforts,

John

Thanks ohMelodyLane for your response.

I do tend to believe that a big part of my wife’s thinking is related to being a child of emotional abusers. I do not totally understand her fear of leaving this behind and moving towards healthier thinking. However, I do try to always show my love and acceptance of her so that she will feel safe opening up to me. I do want to prod her along this path but still try to have enormous patience, as I know she does express feeling manipulated. She wants to have control of herself and I try to grant her that.

When I read about and realized the verbal abuse stuff I went into semi-shock for about a day. Her verbal abuse closely followed patterns described in book by Patricia Evans. I had never imaged that this stuff happens in a lot of marriages.

I do not know what will motivate my wife to change. If anything, I feel like I have been overly gentle. But several days ago when we discussed her seeing the psychologist, she was fairly adamant that there is really no reason to and that it would be a waste of time. She gave no hint that that she can needs to accept advice (like the rest of us). I believe that I have benefited at lot from my appointments with psychologist and reading marriagebuilders.com. But she appears very close-minded about it for herself. If I could get her to see psychologist, I would be extremely grateful.

Thanks again ohMelodyLane
scubadiver

Question for MelodyLane and any other adult child of an alcoholic

My wife emphasizes to me that she is a private person, that she only shares private discussions with three very close friends (she named them). I have since talked to two of these friends, as I know them quite well. They both indicated that my wife has never shared anything conversation remotely personal with them. This is one example of my wife’s lack of honesty which I think is a fundamental issue in our marriage.

I really admire her closest friends and respect the way she has been loyal to them over the years. But I am very puzzled when they tell me they have had essentially no intimate conversations with my wife. I went to these women (with their husbands), asking them this question hoping that they would be close enough to my wife to encourage her to seek counseling from the psychologist. Up to then, my wife adamantly refused to seek help.

I have known several of her friends long enough to know they have healthy intimate friendships. I am not sure how my wife builds up what appear to be very good friendships without sharing more of herself. I have four really close friends that I have shared my most personal feelings with, including my marriage difficulties. I have gotten a lot of support and comfort from this sharing and then receiving their encouragement. I always assumed that most women have intimate friendships but obviously that is not true in my wife’s case.

I am not exactly sure how my wife does so well in her outside relationships but so poorly in our marriage.
Insights from anyone would be much appreciated.
scubadiver

Hi,

I am an adult child of an alcoholic dad and gambling addicted mother. I had a very close relationship with both of them, and so my problems differ from your wife's in a way. I have problems with making poor choices in partners, and suffered from extreme shyness and panic attacks, not as a child but later in life.

My sister however sounds exactly like your wife. She is currently divorcing her third husband, I think anyway as she won't talk about it, not even to him.

She is very, very succesful in her career and recently took an apartment in **** and opened an office. She left her husband behind in their home in another state, and her two daughters in college and grad school where he lives.

My sister is very popular, always has been but she has never once discussed her marriages or even boyfriends with me. NEVER. She won't even tell her two girls what is going on, and I just talked to her husband the other night and he still doesn't know what is going on. However she does go back to Ann Arbor every other weekend and acts like she always did to her husband. No real intimacy from what I can gather, but he treats her like a queen and always have.

I did notice last time I spent some time down there with her that she has quite a few gay women friends. Well they are now friends of the whole family and are great girls but I would bet big money she doesn't discuss her relationship with them either.

She told me her only complaint against her husband was that he wasn't ambitious enough. And believe me he is a very hard worker. He cooks for all of us, even all the friends takes care of her two daughters on the weekend or whenever they need him and also a foster boy they ended up adopting together.

The nicest and most talented guy you ever met.

Wish I had the answer for you but she sure sounds like my sister. Also my sister has NO tolerance for laziness, sickness or weakness of any kind. My mom once told me that she thought sick people disgusted my sister. Although she is very, very kind to me and her kids. Just not her husband. Every once in a while she will call him up and take him on a trip with her though.

He basically just lets her go, and sees her when he can.

I agree with Mel, there is nothing you can do to change her. But you are growing and becomming all that you can be so this is a huge plus for your inner happiness as well as the happiness of your children. <img src="/ubbt/images/graemlins/smile.gif" alt="" />

Edited to add: To answer your question about the lesbian possibility, I don't know if my sister is or not, she seems more asexual than anything else to me. With her I would guess that she would be attracted to the person and the sex would have very little to do with. This is how she seems to me, but if she is bi I would never know until I went to visit her some day and she was with a woman. Because she would never discuss it with me or anyone else, after all these years I know she doesn't open up in this manner to anyone.

I keep thinking about this because you got me started thinking about her.

I think I'll edit out the names of the cities to protect her anonomity.

It's real easy to maintain key friendships for us, but we keep them on a superficial level without ever sharing anything of ourselves. Much easier to do this in a friendship than in a marriage, where intimacy is demanded. And if we are a typical AC, we are loyal as hell and would do anything for our friends. Except share ourselves. In the past, the women I chose for friends were usually emotionally closed off people or someone who would not notice that I was closed off. [and you would be surprised at how common this really is]

Thanks weaver for your insights. You gave me some energy to write some more.

Some of the things you discussed about your sister I see in my wife. My wife can be extremely shy, takes a while to feel comfortable around people she does not know.

Like your sister, my wife will not really talk about more personal things, especially anything that exposes her feelings. In fact, if we see a more relationship type movie (like ON GOLDEN POND), she cannot discuss the relationship aspects. I expressed my feelings of sadness over how the father (Henry Fonda) missed out on connecting with his daughter over his long life. But I also expressed my good feelings about the movie ending and how Henry finally bonded and expressed love to his daughter in a way that she was then willing to accept. I also expressed my thoughts about how in life many relationships do not evolve as we would like but with effort we can make huge improvements.

My wife in most things is a very positive person. However, she did not want to hear much of what I said regarding the movie and was not able to express much in the way of her feelings. Basically she said it was extremely depressing without much uplifting of the spirit. Our conversation ended in about two-minutes as she was uncomfortable discussing any feelings, especially any that expressed sadness. Somehow, her thoughts of any sadness or conflict get locked up inside of her and become very private. She does not derive comfort in sharing these feelings.

At church three weeks ago, a woman gave a beautiful testimony about spiritual healing from a lifelong burden she carried since childhood (could have been some sort of emotional abuse). I expressed some positive thoughts to my wifer about how this woman decided to seek help and was willing to share with the congregation to help others who might carry similar burdens. My wife did not express any thoughts and our conversation ended very abruptly.

My wife has always been a perfectionist and agrees that she gets a lot of he good vibes and accolades by her loyal and good service. However, she also does not have much tolerance for people who do not work hard. When relationships with my wife are less than ideal, she tends to give up and write the other person off. My wife’s relationship with my brother has not been very good. She sort of gave up and took no initiate to be a positive influence to improve the relationship. She waits for my brother to put the first foot forward.

In our marriage, it’s very similar. I am working very hard to learn more about all aspects of marriage and trying to do what is right and have faith that good things will happen. My wife does a lot of great things and works very hard on domestic aspects of our marriage. But even though she reads a lot (about raising kids, etc), she is not interested in the marriage type literature. When it comes to showing emotional intimacy throughout the day, it takes a lot of effort and has been a struggle for her.

Thinking about what you (weaver) said about your sister being asexual, that may well apply to my wife. My wife can be sexual but emotions need to be a big part of it (maybe 40% libido, 60% emotional energy). Certainly when she is operating in a push away mode, the energy for sex is certainly not there.

It saddens me that there is so much that my wife and I cannot discuss. However, I am extremely hopeful that she will eventually want to change for the better. I am determined to give her the adequate time she needs, as I know that change is very difficult (from what I’ve hear and read)

More thoughts anyone?
Welderman (sorry about the name change)

Everyone"
Another example of not understanding my wife and being miles apart in our thinking is as follows:

9 months ago, I expressed to her a commitment to rebuild our love and trust by following the marriagebuilers.com principles and also by seeking and accepting advice from a respected psychologist. I have followed thru on this commitment and initiated a lot of good interaction with my wife. At this time, my wife agrees with me that our marriage is much improved (in my mind, about 200% better). I know I have incredibly great resources in marriagebuilders.com along with the psychologist who I greatly respect.

The last several weeks, I have been reading on the marriagebuilders.com forum quite a bit. Periodically I have indicated to my wife that I come across a lot of wisdom in the many postings. I have told her that all (or mostly all) of the participants appear to be committed and follow the basic concepts in the advice / comments they post. I have asked her if she would take time and read some of the stuff but she is not interested and too busy. She keeps saying that it is just a chat room where people mouth off.

I continue to use the psychologist and periodically express to my wife my respect of his knowledge and advice. However she continues to say subtly derogatory things about him and discount anything he can offer.

I make a very conscientious effort whenever possible to respect the people that my wife holds in high regard. By doing this, I show that I care about he feelings about important thins. But she makes no effort to respect influential people that are important to me. This tells me that she really doesn’t care about my feelings. This is a huge issue, which we will have to address in our marriage counseling.

My goal this week is to get her to do some reading from the forum and get her to think in some different ways.

Thoughts anyone?
Thanks

Why Do We Hurt the One We Love?

Welderman, the above is an article I posted on these boards many months ago. While I was reading your thread, I was reminded of the above article and I thought the article would help to give you more understanding into your W’s behavior.

I also posted a reply to your other thread.

Blessings,
Suzet