where to start?
My wife and i have known each other for quite a few years but became involved about 4 years ago and have been married almost 2 years. a month and a half to our second anniversary.

basically she says that sometimes i would say or do things that would hurt her and when she said anything i didn't listen. that's probably true to a point as i always let things slide off my back pretty easy but apparently she holds it with her.
she also says that she feels like she can't do anything. financially we have been still paying off the wedding so i've been keeping us sort of broke while paying debt. this is a huge stress for her that i didn't realize either.

so now she says that i killed her love slowly and that i should have seen what i was doing. i'm utterly destroyed here i don't know what to do. i said i was very, very sorry for all of that and that i had no idea it was hurting her so much. did she really think that i would have done nothing if i had known for one instant it was hurting our marriage? i love this girl with all my heart and just want to make things better but i'm losing hope that it will happen.
she says she doesn't know who she is anymore and she spends all her free time at her best friends house. i asked her if she would go to counselling and she said no because it won't change her feelings. she says she goes over there to have some free space so she doesn't have to think or be concerned with us.
eventually i told her that i would do what i could to solve both problems. the financial one is pretty easy as i have a job where if i work harder i can make up extra money easily.so i said i would have us out of debt within 6 months and she can have extra money to do what she wants with.
the second part is harder i guess. i said i would not do or say the things that were hurting her. i never said things that i would consider abuse but things like bugging her about her spelling and things like that. she said before that i would walk out and it hurt her so i said i wouldn't do that anymore either. that i did that because i didn't know how to deal with the situation. but i would always be back in like 10 minutes.
so now what? it's so hard to sit here alone and "give her time" when i can't figure out if she wants to come back to me. i'm all alone here as we just moved to this town but her best friend is here for her. hopefully somebody has some advice for me.......in the meantime i'm trying to keep my head up especially when she's around but inside i'm dying here.

Thanks for reading this.....

devastated

she left again last night to her friends house........and is now not wearing her rings. more and more i feel like this is a lost cause.......

im now thinking i will leave town for a week and stay with her parents......they live about 3 hours away. maybe it will give her some space and time to think?

Devastated,
Im so sorry to hear that you are going through so much pain. I can relate since I am in a similar situation. The way I see it is this: As long as you take the blame...she will continue to blame you. It becomes never enough. Do you see? I will fix this...I will do that....you are taking the blame for all her feelings and that is not right. She has to be accountable for somethings too. How old are the both of you?

Men often feel as though they need to fix things. When your spose states something, let it just be that. She is just expressing her feelings. That does not mean you have to take ownership of all of her feelings. I know its hard to back off, but its only what you can do. You can not be the bandage for all that she feels. I wouldnt look too deeply into her sharing with her friends. Women can comfort eachother as only they know how. Sometimes its hard for a man to understand. Let her have her time with friends or family.

As for the ring, I personally think that she is doing it to show you how hurt she is. Its kind of like a childish test. She's hurt, so she's going to hurt you. She knows how desperate you are so...she's going to take off that ring. If you act like it hurts, she's going to constantly do it.

Try try try to not take things so personally right now. Let the dust settle and maybe she will come to you and try to communicate when she is ready. I know that I sound like Ms. know it all, but I am going through a very similar situation. You cant control them. If you find it hard to talk and express feelings, write them down and later share with her when you are both in a better state of mind.

I wish you all the best!
Hang in there!

Thank you so much for your response. I was beginning to think i wouldn't get one.
I think quite a bit of what you say is true and that she is very hurt and wants to make me hurt as well. But I feel like nothing will get better if she is never around. Also I feel like I am doing neither of us any good to just constantly be here at the house (I work here as well). I am seriously thinking about leaving town ASAP to give her some space. I'd stay here but I don't know anyone here since we moved here about 5 months ago. At least that way I'm out of her hair so to speak.
I have gotten to the point of seriously considering that she made some kind of mistake while I was away. As much as it would hurt it makes way more sense to me that she would act this way. All her actions so far make me believe that but she has denied anything like that and just says she doesn't love me anymore and she doesn't know who she is. To me that says there's another guy in the picture somehow.
Anyways, should I go for a week?
Thanks again for responding.

If you decide to leave for awhile its your choice. I would advise you dont. What would be the purpose? You are then again RESPONDING to her actions. Find things that you enjoy doing. Dont be available all the time. Work out, make new friends, watch movies. Let HER do the wondering for a change. If you are there emotionally and physically, it gives her more fuel to take you for granted. Let her open up to when she's ready. Try not to think so much. The person that is hurt and is the clingy one seems to always over think! Do whats good for you now and let her see that you are independant and strong. No one wants to be with a clingy person that seems needy. Work on you! Dont take her words and actions so personally for right now. Let some time pass and be patient. AGAIN, this is easier said than done. Trust me, I am also going through it. I just have to build my own confidence and be around those who support me and want me to be happy. That has to come from you. A confident person is attractive and your spouse will sense that something has changed in you.

Good luck!

we just got back from a good long walk and then a drive and talked about some of the things that are bothering her. i talked for the first while about how i felt about the situation and what she means to me. then i got around to asking "specifically" what are some of the things that are bothering her? the first two problems she came up with were money problems. she doesn't feel like she has any freedom. i can change the money problem by simply working harder. also i told her she could have her own account to do whatever she wishes with so maybe that will help. the next thing she talked about was that she doesn't feel that she is important to me and that i don't respect her. yikes. i told her that if i made her feel that way it was completely unintentional and she has always been my number one. she felt that when i joked around with her about her spelling or something that i was really making fun of her so she took it to heart that i thought she was stupid or something. i never knew it bugged her that much so obviously i won't be doing that anymore.

she is still thinking about staying at her friends place but i think we at least made a little progress. at times i thought she was coming around a bit. but she still kept saying she doesn't know what she wants and that she doesn't think i can do it. all i can do is change the situation and hope she stays around long enough to see it right?

Its good to celebrate small victories! Im glad that you were able to open up. The last part of your post is what worries me. I still dont think you get it. You can not change the world to make her happy. This will bring up resentment in the future and control issues. She should be happy by you being YOU, Not happy for you being what she wants you to be.

Do you really want to be with someone that will just "stick around" as long as you are bending backwards to satisfy her? Seriously? I think you should look at yourself and ask what you want! Build your self-esteem and love you....first.

yes i see what you mean. i think the way i am looking at it is that i needed a kick in the [censored] to motivate me and i haven't been working as much as i should. i didn't start doing this(i'm an artist) until my early twenties because my whole family are artists and i didn't think i could do it. so when i start to get overwhelmed i start working less. kind of defeatist but it makes things really hard on someone else too i guess. i should have been working more than i have been in the first place and i should have realized that it was making her feel very insecure about our future.

anyways she has decided to go stay at her friends until sunday. who knows what happens then but maybe she'll have time to ponder some of the things we talked about.

Have your read any of the information on this site? Do you understanding the concepts? Emotional needs? Love Busters?

Your wife is trying to tell you that her emotional bank has been emptied with all the withdrawals you have made.

The clue here is actually the word she used -- respect.

A 'disrespectful judgement' (comments about her spelling is probably just one example she can give you).

When the bank is emptied the love is gone. You need to start filling up the bank again. You need to read up on the concepts here. If you can get your wife to participate, that will speed things up.

it seems like all ive been doing while she's been gone is looking and reading on this site. i have learned a lot from it and wish i could share it with her. so many things here are bang on and it's all stuff that i had no idea i was doing. i'm hoping to get another chance with her but i don't know.
right now she is still at her friends house. we had a walk and talk a few days ago that i thought was very good progress. we talked about how she felt and what the things are that are making her feel hurt. even though it didn't immediately turn everything around i felt like she might have turned the corner a little. then she called me the next morning and asked me why i love her, why i miss her and why i need her. i told her everything i could to let her know how i feel about her and that also seemed like a step in the right direction to me.
but now i haven't heard from her since then and that was almost 3 days ago now. not sure what to make of it but she did say she was coming back here tomorrow. not sure what that means. coming back here to tell me to take a hike? coming back to say she'll give it another go?
i want to believe she'll stay but when you sit here by yourself it's hard to say one way or the other.
i'm hoping though.

What has been going on with the money? Do you both sit down together to pay bills each week or month?

well that was a big part of why this is happening and i understand now why it has affected her so much. she felt that she was working 40 hours a week and not seeing any of it at the end of the day. she would not know if she could pick up a shirt or a pair of shoes without asking first. i never meant for her to feel that way but thats what happened. we always put both our pay into one account and i would take care of bills and whatnot. so i always knw what was going on and she didn't.
big big mistake.
i have now told her that her paycheck is completely hers to spend any way she wishes. to be honest it's really not very much money. i make enough to pay for everything else anyway.
i also said that from now on she will be included in ANY decisions to do with money as i realize now what a terrible state to be in that is.
i truly feel that these things can be worked on but i don't know if i'll get the chance.

Without assuming to much but based on my experience and the written accounts of others....

Is she seeing someone else? If it's to the point of her not staying at home, there is more going on. Check on it. The "I'm not in love with you" spill is textbook for EA or PA going on. Not to say it's a given, but it definitely bears checking up on.

i did do a bunch of snooping to check it out and found nothing to suggest it. i didn't believe she was the type in the first place but you're right people saying that kind of thing usually are.
in the meantime, she came back yesterday and the wall has dropped and we are giving it another kick at the can. i am just hoping for the best so we'll see what happens now.

well she's been back for a few days. it could be better it could be worse. i mean she's here so that's a start. there is still a little wall up though and you can tell we are kind of uncomfortable right now. it's not like it used to be but it's only been a couple of days i guess. she still says she feels differently about me. i said that people say they aren't "in" love anymore all the time but that maybe that's not quite accurate. i said that maybe the love is there but she doesn't want to drop the wall to get hurt again. and that it's going to be a while before we feel the same about each other again. at least that's what i hope will happen.

my plan is to just do the things i told her i was going to do. watch the things i say to her as in not saying dumb things that hurt. give her the financial freedom that she wanted which puts a little more pressure on me but hey i'll do whatever i have to.

i hope that eventually she will see these things and start coming around. right now she still brings up things like "why did you make me throw away my dance shoes when we moved? you threw away my memories." yikes. she is obviously still thinking of things that are negative and most of them i think she thought i was doing on purpose just to hurt her. anyways, wish me luck.

any idea's on how to smooth things along or is it just time?

You've offered to work on the financial things. Rather than say "I'll include you" and "your paychecks are yours to do what you want to" ask her to sit down with you when you pay bills.

Money seems to be a problem in a LOT of marriages. It almost broke us up once. She quit her job and wondered why we were going to be 2k/short at the end of the month. It doesn't grow on trees. <img src="/ubbt/images/graemlins/smile.gif" alt="" />

My x had no idea where the money went. It wasn't intentional, since we never had money problems she thought everything was fine (which it sort of was). Then she left work and wondered why I dropped the cable tv and stuff.We sat down once and I showed her the checkbook. She got involved and ended up taking over bill paying (which isn't hard since it's all automated).

In the end we ended up with an allowance. Each of us got $ per month to do what we wanted to do. If you needed something that went over the amount, just ask - usually money wasn't a problem and it was ok. Asking was good since if I knew insurance was due in a week I'd not be spending $100.00 on shoes.

Not saying words that hurt is hard. Before you make any comments sit on the words for a few seconds - say them to yourself. Or say them to yourself and not to her. It's easier not to. I do this at work and it goes a long way.