What are some ways you can do positive things for your wife when you are seperated and do not want to push her emotionally?

“””What are some ways you can do positive things for your wife when you are separated and do not want to push her emotionally?”””

Shine…. Depending on what interaction she’ll allow, you have to take each opportunity to shine without asking her to comment on it. Relationship talks are probably a no-no.

You have to show her in your every interaction that you are no longer lying, manipulating, unfaithful, or possess passive-aggressive behavior. Another thing that she has to see is that you are not “controlling” and that should she return to you that she would return as an equal. You have to become a haven of safety and security.

“””she is running personal ads and is actively dating. Needless to say seeing a personal ad with my wife’s picture drives a stake right through my heart.”””

Short term advice while you continue to work on yourself and these character traits that you talked about earlier, don’t check up on her. Spend all your emotional energy on yourself, your improvements, and your healing. Keeping tally of her will bring resentments in your life.

“””Everything I say to her she perceives as a lie”””

Just because you’ve stated that you’ve changed, you can’t expect that to wipe away the perceptions of others that you wrote with your previous actions. You have to remember one key thing here, the only thing that has changed in this situation is you. The world, including your wife, has not gone through some miraculous miracle of self-discovery. Now is the time to speak with your actions and not your words.

Have you taken the time to read His Needs/Her Needs and all the information on this site? Have you taken time to do the emotional needs survey to see what yours are? I’m guessing your wife won’t do this right now, but you could try to evaluate what her top 5 emotional needs are and as she’ll allow, slowly begin to meet those. Remove all Love Busting and Disrespectful Judgments from all interactions with her. Right now she may view you as someone not worth keeping, but you’ve got to slowly get her to see that you’re someone not worth loosing.

Hugz, Thoughts, & Prayerz

Thank you for your response. I am currently reading His Needs/ Her Needs with about 4 chapters left. I wish I had whole heartedly read that book years ago. I intend to read Love Busters after I finish this one. I have printed volumes of info from this site and find it gives me a greater awareness of her needs that I was deficiant in.

Michael,

You and I are almost in the same boat sans the kids. I wish you the best of luck. Hit me with a PM offline if you want.

Jared

Tried to send a PM but it would not let me. If you are in the same boat I obviously would like to discuss things with you. Try to pm me please

Michael,

I think it has to do with the junior member thing or something. I don't know why we can't PM.

Alot has happened since I posted that.

I have been really trying to change my life.

I have been reading the books, I have been going to counseling and trying to figure out why I did the things I did. I now know where a lot of my habits came from, and it has been great to figure that monster out. I also began to accept God into my life. I sent a heartfelt letter to my wife monday morning, describing so much I have been doing and changing in my life. It worked <img src="/ubbt/images/graemlins/ooo.gif" alt="" />

We had dinner Monday 16th. She told me Sunday night she was trying to figure out what to do. She had detached from the whole situation and ignored everything, she is living with a friend and she put me and our marriage out of her mind. Sunday she decided that enough was enough, she was going to end it. That night she had a dream, that we were together adn happy. Monday morning she woke confused and now not sure what she wanted to do. She prayed to God for a sign of what to do. She read my letter and decided to take a step back and try to work things out.

We had dinner and talked for quite a while. She does not want to be a statistic, we are young, (me:28, her:25) she feels it's too easy for people to just give up and start over. She is still kinda on the bubble, but I think we are making progress, it is just going to take time.

Time is something that is SO HARD for me to deal with. I have control issues and this IS helpful to try and get rid of those issues, but it is hard. It is hard not knowing, it hurts. But I have faith that God will get us thru this. that we will be able to rebuild our marriage.

Hopefully soon we can both get into counseling. But baby steps for now. I just pray she doesn't loose hope. We CAN do this. That is the update on me.

Please email me if you like, my email is gunnydogs@hotmail.com I would like to hear from you. Some days are good, I have confidence that this will work, some days are bad and I worry that she might have doubts. She still says she just doesn't feel the love, but she did say it will take time to get that back. I do believe it CAN come back. I hope your situation is going well, I will say a prayer for you. Take care and talk to you soon.

jared