I posted this over in the Divorce/Divorcing, and someone mentioned posting it here, so here it goes. I'll throw in an update at the end.

Well, I'm in the middle of a divorce I had no clue was coming. I know alot of people say that, and honestly, I should have seen it coming, because it was mostly my fault.

Basically, for the last seven years, I've made my wife afraid of me. I came home from work, and I'd be nice, but then I'd find something to nag and pick about and turn it into a major arguement where I'd berate her for hours, not allowing her to leave. I'd make stupid comments and degrade her, breaking every Lovebuster in the book. I've been a horrible husband.

She says she didn't know which husband was coming home, the good me or the bad me. The last straw was I got angry with my children and spanked them while I was angry. It scared her so bad she decided to leave and went to a shelter, and I didn't see them for two months. I filed for divorce because I wanted my kids back, and I had no clue that I had been this way at all. I never saw it, or the real reason I was doing it.

In counseling, it came out that her grandfather, who she lived with for many years, was a different person at work. He came home and he was a monster, yelling and screaming. The counselor looked over at me and said "That sounds alot like you, doesn't it?" I said yes, it does, I yell, but not scream. I don't get violent. But she was ingrained to think I was going to.

Stress killed me and my marriage. I've been stressed out for over seven years, each year something financially devestating or emotionally wracking, happens. I was unable to deal with it all, and I ended up taking it out on my wife.

My wife ended up seeking solace in another man while she has been seperated from me, and has come to care for him. I believe she is placing her true buried feelings for me on him because she can't deal with it. She tells me she doesn't love me anymore, wants the divorce, cannot be married to me anymore, doesn't want to be my wife anymore, and that I cannot change anything. The other man has agreed to step out of the picture after I spoke to him so we can work things out, but my wife still doesn't want to reconcile. She believes that he will come back to her, or that she will be able to seduce him back.

Yes, I've been a horrible husband. I feel guilty for everything I did to her. She did agree to go to counseling so that we can be "friends" for the kids. This was the beginning of us spending almost every waking minute together for over the past two weeks.

It started after I got joint custody of my children and had to pick them up at her apartment. I got her to speak to me, and she finally told me why this was all going on. I really had no clue, I had denied it all to myself and blanked out things I didn't want to admit. I couldn't admit it.

So we talked about it, and she told me over and over that she doesn't want to get back together, even if I got custody of the kids. She said she was willing to be my friend, and that was all she was willing to give. I said okay, I'd take that, but I wanted her to know that I was going to try the hardest I've ever worked for anything in my life to get back to the real person I was before stress took over my life. She said okay, that's nice, but it won't work.

So for the past two weeks, I've been picking her up from college, getting my girls from daycare, and we hang out. Take the kids places, eat dinner together, sometimes without the kids. Tonight, my mother took the kids to her farm and we went to a steak restruant, I had her dress in a really nice dress that makes her look gorgeous, and then we came home and watched some movies. All while I rubbed her feet.

My wife has always loved my massages, and she complains that I never wanted to give them. So about a week ago, I took her to a craft fair that was in town, took control of my anxiety around large groups of people, and had a great time. After that we cooked dinner together and watched movies. I asked her if she wanted a foot rub, she said "Sure." and I massaged her feet for over 2 hours. The next night, it was her legs and knees, then the next day it was her back. I was able to just start rubbing her back at the park yesterday.

I'm very confused about this. The counselor we're seeing, which my wife only sees so that "we can be good friends", the counselor says she sees a connection between us and that what we're going through isn't normal. She doesn't even know about the time I've spent with her or the massages.

My wife was making comments, like when we were fixing dinner together, that it was good I was learning to cook, because girls love that. When I told her I wanted to give her a massage everynight for the rest of her life because it made her happy, and that's what I'm supposed ot be here for, she said "Well that would make your future girlfriend unhappy if you had to massage my feet everynight while you were with her". She made comments like that. A female coworker told me to just tell her to quit it. So I did. I asked her nicely to please stop mentioning future girlfriends, that she knows the reason I'm doing these things is for her and nothing else. She said okay, she'd stop.

She also makes very confusing comments. On our way home from counseling, I asked her "You really think I won't change for you?". She replied "Well, maybe I'll be pleasantly surprised." Tonight I said "You're just not buying that I want to change for you, do you?" She replied "I don't know, maybe." That's a huge change from the "Nothing is going to change my mind" of two weeks ago. Everyone is telling me to give it time, but I'm worried she is going to get this guy back in her life, and there's nothing I can do about it. I don't want to control her, I can't compete and keep trying knowing she is seeing someone. It'll be over then.

Tomorrow night we're going to a Halloween party together, she's medusa and I'm a vampire. We picked out two very nice costumes, and she tried on a couple very slinky outfits at my requests. She said "If it makes you happy" when I asked her to try one on that she didn't want. Tomorrow morning we're going to clean her apartment together and I'm going to paint her toenails and fingernails to match her costume! Argh!

Basically I'm very confused. I don't want to be that person anymore. I never did, but I didn't know how to deal with stress, and I picked on her because she was an easy target. I hate what I did to her, and I want to atone for it. I don't know if what I'm doing is working, everyone says to keep it up and work on my issues and that she'll come around. I've learned to love her again for who she is, and I truly have fallen in love with her again, although she says I am just attached to her.

I've read both His Needs, Her needs and Lovebusters and I have seen all my mistakes and want to work through them and save my marriage for hers and my kids sake, as well as my own.

I'm just so confused. I love her more than anything in the world, and that means I should just let her go if that's what would make her happy, but I can't help but be selfish and want her back. She's the love of my life and I can't see my life without her and her smile.

I want my wife back.

So we went to the Halloween party, she was a knockout Medusa and I was a vampire. We hung out with some co workers and one of their wives and talked til about 1am. One of these co workers played regular Dungeons and Dragons games with us, so my wife knows him well, and he suggested that we go out to Denny's afterward, and he managed to get his wife to ride with my wife and us together since I didn't know where it was.

I spoke to him in the car, told him this is tearing me apart. My wife and I are computer geeks, we share so much in common with likes, dislikes, hobbies, etc, it's not even funny. We're really meant for each other, and that makes this a hundred times worse. He told me later that my wife had mentioned to his wife that she doesn't feel guilty letting me pay all this attention to her, and that she really likes it.

So we ended up eating at Dennys, had a fine time, and went home. My wife has an apartment in another town, and I had asked if she would be willing to stay at the house so I could drink at the party. She had said she would be willing to, but she would be uncomfortable. After thinking it over for a day, and after reading a response to my other message, I told her to forget about staying over, I'd just take her home, I didn't want her to be uncomfortable. She said she appreciated it.

So we headed back to the house to get out of our costumes, and it was after 1am, so she said she'd stay since she was so tired and didn't want me falling asleep at the wheel on the way home. So we both slept on the two couches in the living room.

Since then we've spent mostly every moment together. We went to a farmer's market and bought a picnic basket because we decided we like having picnics together. We went to a very nice breakfast restruant, played video games all day together, all while I gave her back, leg and foot massages.

She has stayed the night here twice in the past two days, I sleep in the living room, she in the bedroom, since I am having to take her and the kids to school and daycare in the mornings, it's much easier and one less trip to the town she is living in.

She still is making comments like she wants to get a washer and dryer for her apartment, she's doing laundry here, in fact I just got done folding all of her laundry, and she doesn't feel uncomfortable with me folding her underwear....anyhow, I told her she didn't need to spend money on a washer/dryer since she can always use the ones at the house. We cooked another dinner together, and I ended up giving her a lie-on-the-bed-with-shirt-mostly-off back rub. She ended up giving me a nice back rub a couple days ago. We watched Click together last night.

Tonight we go to another counseling session. I'm going to ask the counselor to give us 30 minutes each individual counseling so I can tell her about this stuff and see what she thinks, because I'm confused. All the signs she's giving me are that she needs to be convinced and I need to prove I can change and that things can be okay. While on the other hand she makes comments that point to a future where she isn't coming back, etc. My mother is going to be taking the kids tonight and tomorrow, so we'll be alone tonight, I don't know what she wants to do, haven't planned anything.

Am I going crazy or is there something else here? Is my wife confused as much as I am?

I hope that your counseling appointment goes well tonight.

I'm not one of the experts around here, so hopefully they will weigh in, soon.

But I think that if I were your wife, I'd be incredibly wary of you right now, too. Some of the comments in your post are really disturbing, sound very controlling and abusive.

She finally managed to get herself out of that, I'm sure it will take a VERY long time and a LOT of evidence that there are real, concrete, significant changes before she'd consider putting herself back in that situation.

What have you done to make the changes that you are promising to her? Other than massages and groveling .... which aren't going to last long .... what have you done to make the changes real and concrete and long lasting? How do you know that you won't revert back to your old ways the next time you get stressed out? How does SHE know?


I'm sure you're right and that she is probably very confused, as you are. But it sounds like she's also being cautious. Which I think is very smart of her in this case.


If you're serious about winning her back, then keep up with what you're doing -- which is kind of a Plan A, I suppose. But more importantly, find real, solid ways to fix the other problems. Are you seeing an individual counselor? How about anger management or abuse recovery type of classes?

You don't get to decide if she comes back, or if she goes with the other man, or what she does. It's out of your control, so all the wondering and worrying you do about it isn't going to make a difference. You can't manipulate or force her into coming back. You can give her something good to come back to, by focusing on YOU.


Good luck.

-AmI.

Stop placating the WS. If you really want your W back you will stop enabling the WS.

Read Surviving an Affair. Call Jennifer C @ MB for a recovery plan for U!

L.

AmIOK, you're right. It's me that has to change, not her. The individual counseling helped a bit last night, except the counselor pointed out to her that she may be leading me on by spending so much time with me, so she doesn't want to spend as much time with me. It may be for the best.

I am trying to figure out what those solid ways to fix things are. I am seeing an anger management counselor.

One of the things that we got into was that I wasn't appreciating her as a person. I put myself and my needs over her and hers all the time. I was very selfish. I did not understand how stressful and time consuming taking care of the kids 24/7 was, and didn't appreciate what it took to do so. That one I've learned on my own from having custody. I didn't appreciate that I had a wife who wanted to make me happy. The only thing I came up with there after searching is that I was complacent with the way things were. I thought, there's always tomorrow to make her happy. What a stupid moron I was. I don't know the why of how I did that. I know that's not the way in my head I wanted to treat my wife. It doesn't conform to my view of how to treat women, it's not how I was raised, and I had no role model to show that that was okay.

I am trying to put her as much first in everything as I possibly can, like I did when we had met, like what should have always been. I'm taking the kids tonight so she can spend a night alone, without them or me. I'm trying to help her get into a driving course so she can drive and no longer have to rely on me or anyone else to get her places.

I am supporting her and am proud that she is taking computer courses to better her life and give her a career that she can support herself and our kids with.

I am trying to be her friend, open and caring, listening to and not trying to fix her problems. I am trying to share time with her in doing the things she likes to do instead of what I wanted to do or how long I wanted to stay somewhere. I am getting counseling about my crowded area phobia that has caused me to not take her to places like malls and areas with large amounts of people.

I'm doing things for her that do not have any strings attached, no ulterior motives other than I want her to be happy and spend time with her and the kids.

I am not arguing or getting angry with her about the small things, the things that don't matter, and if we do have a discussion, I am holding to the "Speaker/Listener" technique we learned in a marrage class a long time ago. I do not throw things in her face or tell her things are her fault. I am accepting responsibility for the things I have done, instead of denying the possibility that they happened.

And, I appreciate her as a person for who she is, not who I want her to be. For all the things I love about her, all the small things like how she eats chinese food with chopsticks, to the conversations about video games. I've fallen in love with her again.

I'll keep it up.

Who are you in love with, the current WS or your W? May seem like a silly question but take a look at your actions and figure out which one you are helping. Then decide which one you should be helping.

L.

I agree 100000% with amiok...

what exactly does it mean when YOU say ...inlovewithlisa

I had her dress in a really nice dress that makes her look gorgeous,

do you know how that sounds...

can you see it...

how about these statements....

and she tried on a couple very slinky outfits at my requests. She said "If it makes you happy" when I asked her to try one on that she didn't want.


you see these as good positive signs...

It can also be the abused appeasing the abuser to avoid conflict...

you tally those actions in a postivie column...

she probably figures it's not worth the battle....

I hope you are going to anger management...

OWN ALL your abuse which is irrelevent of her grandfathers abuse...

you did it
you own it

for seven years your wife lived in fear of YOU...

quit talking change...and get yourself immersed in to counsel that addresses that..

and quit telling or suggesting what outfit your wife should wear to make YOU happy...

ARK

You need to work on you. I don't want you to think I'm trying to kick you while you're down. I just know how it feels to be on the receiving end of such nastiness.

I've been M to a man w/some of the same nastiness that you describe for the last nine years. I moved out 2.5 years ago, still married, and haven't seen enough change to make me want to go home. Will probably file for D this week as I see nothing that would make me want to continue the R.

If you want your M to work, the best thing you can do is work on you first. If you truly love her you would not want her to be married to the man that you have been for the last seven years.

You also talked about having kids. Please get help for their sake as well. If you have a son, he will treat women as he sees you treat your wife. If you have a daughter, she will choose men hwo act like you and she will end up treated as you have treated your wife in front of her.

Don't try to convince your wife with massages and little niceties. Show her that you can be the man she married not the man you became when life got hard.

An addendum...........
Nothing you did excuses what she did. The OM is easier for her than dealing with you. But, she's still having a A b/c the two of you aren't divorced.

There's lots of great advice here. Two of the best have already posted to you.

Well, I wanted some feedback on what I've been doing, and some suggestions.

We've had a couple counseling sessions, but it looks like we're going to split up into individual counseling since the counselor is still saying it would be better since my wife says she still doesn't want to work on it at all.

We had an arguement in the car on the way to the last one about the kids.I told her I want us to try for the kid's sake. She believes I am trying to use the kids, but this is my honest opinion for what is best for the kids. I really want them to have the chance to have their family, not the one she had when her parents got divorced when she was six. I'm hoping that maybe her counseling sessions will deal with what is in the best interests of the kids. Yes, the kids should not be in a home where the father yells at and berates the mother. They shouldn't see that, and I never should have done it, and I am more than sorry for it, I am ashamed of it. But I can change it.

My counseling is going fairly well, dealing with anger, stress and whatnot. I linked alot of jealousy and resentment to her in that she was able to stay home with the kids and stay away from the world while I went to work and enabled her to do what she always wanted to do: be a stay at home mom. It's what I wanted too, but I grew to be jealous and resentful. I felt unappreciated, and I lashed out at her for it. I have failure issues that I used to be a PC Tech, and now I have a non PC related job. It pays well, but it's not satisfying. Somehow my anger at myself was taken out on her.

The one thing that keeps coming up is that my family and friends are screaming at me that I am doing too much to help her. I am enabling her to keep away from me. Part of that is that I KNOW she needs to be away from me, but of course, like tonight, I have the kids and wonder if she's with the other guy that said he'd "step aside" so we could work things out. I know, it's pointless worrying, but how I can concentrate on working things out?

Here's a taste of what I'm doing. She needed a microwave, complained she didn't have one, not in a way that made it seem like she wanted me to buy one, everytime we went to Walmart, she mentioned she can't get microwave meals, things like that. My wife isn't like that, but she is unconciously using me. So I took her to the microwave aisle and told her to pick one out.

I'm taking her to Walmart, Target, used furniture stores, etc, looking for things for her apartment. This one really hurts, she never really had any interest in making the house look nice, or having any say in it's appearance, and I don't understand. She needs a couch, and I've actually considered renting a U Haul or borrowing a pickup from a friend to get her one. I know this is way too far, but I cna't help considering it because it's what she would like. Would she really fully appreciate the trouble I would go through? I don't know. It's like there's a line marked HELP and USED, and I'm letting myself push myself across the line. It isn't her, it's me. I don't want to quit seeing her or my kids everyday.

She has a cell phone her father is paying for, 80 bucks twice a month for 800 minutes, so I asked her if she would like me to get her a phone on my account, she said okay. So I signed a two year contract to get her a cell phone that shares my minutes.

My wife is taking taxis to daycare and school everyday. At 20 bucks a day, she runs out of money halfway through the month. She's on welfare, so she gets like 200 bucks a month, and that isn't enough for the whole month. Her grandparents gave her some money, which she spent on outfits to go to a club for an "acquintences" birthday party. If she wasn't spending money on a taxi, she could afford the things she and the children need, but to me she is putting herself first. That pains me. Yes, it also has something to do with my control issues, I can honestly admit that, but the majority of my concern is for my kids and what they need. They need a stable enviroment. They don't have one with the moving back and forth, the amount of travel time between the cities, etc. I asked her to move back into the house, I'd move out, and I had found a daycare that allowed me to help them in the morning instead of taxis, there are no daycares with open slots that open early enough in her town, but she has refused because that puts her "in my power" again. She had initially said okay, and then changed her mind. I probably did something or said something.

I took her to JC Penny to look for dresses and clothes, she actually values me in this area, I have a really good mind's eye for outfits, I can see or imagine pretty much anything. So I helped her pick out the outfit she wore, which was completely drop dead gorgeous. In truth, I was torturing myself.

And, I don't know what I was thinking, but I offered to take her to this club. We didn't know it, but it was WAY up on the north side of the city. I didn't make a big deal out of it. Took me half an hour to get there, half an hour home, then waited til I got a phone call at 1:30am to come get her. I even offered to take her to Denny's afterwards because she was hungry. I'm grasping for every moment I can get with her, and deep down, I am a really nice guy, she even has said that.

Last night, we went to see Stranger Than Fiction and we walked around the mall a bit. Afterwards, I had told her I had a surprise. As I mentioned before, I give really good massages, and she had raved about how good a pedicure felt. So I looked up how to give one online, bought a bunch of creams and lotions, something to soak her feet in, pumice stone to rub her callouses off, all sorts of stuff. I told her I had a surprise for her and that she'd like it. We headed to the house and I gave her a pedicure that lasted about two hours while we watched some DvDs she picked off Netflix, which she asked me to sign up for since we were spending so much at Blockbuster.

I've found the reason to change. My wife and kids are worth anything, and everything. I'm working on trying to not be controlling, being the gentleman I used to be for her, and working on my issues through therapy, and I actually think it's helping.

But, as I sit back and look, am I doing too much? My family would skin me if they had any idea how much I'm doing, they believe in the end, it will make things worse for me to let go. And they are probably right. But how can I not do these things? I couldn't possibly live with myself if I didn't give it my all. It's all that matters. And this is between me and her, not my or her family.

Anyhow, the real question is: My wife spent the money her grandmother had given her for taxi rides on clothes, so now she has asked me if she can trade me foodstamps for money for taxi rides. If I say yes, I am completely enabling her in everything and she will never see she does need and want my help. But at the same time, I desperately want to help her in every way I can. But will it do any good to a person who says "I'm never coming back".

To me, never is a long time to be so sure about.

Life2short,AmIOk, Ark, I wanted to thank you both for your advice. Ark, you're completely right. The abuse was mine. Nothing excuses it. No matter what, I made the choice to extend my anger beyond what is accepted, espicially to me. What I did was unacceptable, and I have owned up to it all.

I sat down with her and admitted my fault and guilt at what I did, did not attach any blame to her, did not use "or" "if" or "but". Ark, your phrase "owning the abuse" really bounced around in my head, and it finally hit something. I am ashamed of what I did, and I finally was able to get that across to her in a way that didn't judge, blame, or hurt her. Thank you very much.

We went to what I thought was our last counseling session together, the counselor had reccomended individual counseling and we were going to get the names of counselors closer to her for her to see alone. I went in with a list of things to fully admit and take responsibility for. I didn't get a chance at the session, as it developed into alot about my wife.

We told the counselor about our week, what we had been doing together, like going to a movie together without the kids, and that I gave her a pedicure, and she started saying "There's something here, you guys have a connection that goes beyond being friends for the kids." and it kind of went from there. My wife kind of got put into a spot, and I felt bad for her, espicially when we got into her family past. By the end of the session, the counselor was saying we should come back for more marital counseling together.

Afterwards we went to a mall nearby and she picked out some clothes for me to wear to a club she'd like me to go to with her and her friends so I can hang out with her and buy her drinks so she won't feel obligated to give men her number. This was her idea, not mine. I think we'll have alot of fun.

The next day, she was sitting at her computer here and said "I'm not going back to that counselor." When I asked why, she told me it was because the counselor had told her things I had said in our one and only individual session. I had told the counselor I was confused, and that I didn't understand why my wife was hanging out with me so much if she never wanted to get back together. Basically I believe the counselor knew I was throwing everything into working things out, and it looked to her like my wife was using me, which is actually what she said in the last session.

So I said, no, I don't think that's why you don't want to go back. I said it was because there is something between us and the counselor sees it and tried to get you to say it. She got really defensive and started to get angry, so I said "okay, I should take you home now. I don't want a fight." I got up to leave, and she just sat there. So I said "Well, what do you want me to do?" She said we should talk about it.

That's when I was able to get into owning my abuse, and I meant every word of it. I feel so much better now. We talked about how she believes if we got back together, we'd just got back to our comfortable rut that was intolerable to her. I was able to get across that I don't want to go back to that either, I want to take this other road with her. I told her about all the changes to our relationship I really want, all the things I think we can do together to work things out.

In the end, I told her how hard it was to continue working alone in the face of "No, it's never going to work." She said she thinks we can change alot, but that she isn't sure she can get over some of the things that had happened. I said okay, I don't really expect a yes, I was looking for just some hope, a maybe, some sort of positive reinforcement of any sort. She said all she could give me was an "I don't know." I said I'd take that, because I don't know is alot better than no and never.

We're going to spend Thanksgiving together and she's at the house everyday. I'm trying to give her as much space as she wants, as much help as she wants, and encouraging and caring words when we talk. I'm not pushing her, I'm letting the counselor do that, she's the professional.

I just wanted to say thanks for the advice, no matter how hard it was to swallow and follow. Thanks.