Hello everyone. I have been lurking this board for a little while now, and have been coming back to reread the site in general for the last 5 years. Warning - it's a long post, so if you can make it through to the end, I congratulate you. <img src="/ubbt/images/graemlins/smile.gif" alt="" />
My W and I have been together since early 96, living together since mid-96, engaged early 98, bought our first house mid-99, married mid-99, first child in 01, second child in 04....
When we first met, I thought she was the coolest girl I had ever known. She was in turns; cute, fun, smart, and unassuming.
For the first few years of our marriage, I think we were really happy. When she announced that she was pregnant, I spent most of the time nervous and scared of what the future held rather than excited like I was supposed to be. I thought that I handled the second pregnancy better, but I'm not sure that she agreed. Ultimately though, I firmly believe that my kids are the best things to ever happen to me. I love them more than anything in the world, though I still love my wife a great deal as well (but perhaps less than I should?).
Back at exactly this time of year in 03, my wife and I started to bicker often and things were becoming rocky. She seemed discontented with us, though our communication skills were very poor so I wasn't sure. I didn't understand her needs and we were still too caught up in pointing the finger at each other, rather than at ourselves. Eventually I made a stupid, stupid mistake by getting together with a friend and smoking a joint. It was the first time I had done that since college and I admit that it was an incredibly dumb thing to do; especially as a new father.
W found out about it and hit the roof. After spending two weeks not talking to me, I eventually convinced her to join me in counseling. Over time I think she came to trust me that I accepted responsibility for my mistake. I also came to understand that she had grown more and more frustrated with my lack of engagement with her and our daughter. In short, I wasn't meeting her needs as a husband or a father. So I made it a point to try and be more engaged.
I think things were okay for a while, but when she got pregnant the second time, I must have disengaged again and she began to feel unsupported once more. I admit that I was pretty nervous and scared. Another mouth to feed, more expenses, more time spent... But when my son finally came, my apprehensions slowly melted away as we developed our routines. Don't get me wrong, I have loved him since the day he was born and that has only grown since. An especially jarring wake-up call for me was when he got sick early in 05 and ended up in the hospital for 3 days. I realized how badly I had been taking my family for granted. Unfortunately, expressing those feelings in words wasn't enough. I think I was continuing to grow, but not fast enough...
A few weeks after that occurred, we were sitting in the living room watching TV together and my daughter was making some excessive noise with a balloon. I irritably told her to stop and then mumbled that I was going to pop said balloon and throw it away.
My wife again hit the roof. Not just because of that, but because the frustration had again been building to the point that she couldn't take it anymore. This time we went for four months essentially separated under the same roof. It was one of the toughest times I had ever gone through. She wouldn't agree to counseling with me this time (as she felt the last counselor always took "my side"), and she seemed convinced that she was totally done with me.
I began to seek counseling on my own with a different person. He was supportive and offered a lot of good advice. I came to realize through him and through the information on this site that I still wasn't "depositing enough love units in my W's love bank". We were living two separate lives with her taking most of the household responsibilities. I threw myself into fixing things and nearly memorized the section about regaining another person's love.
For literally months I worked toward getting her back emotionally. All of my personal efforts were to that end. Another happy consequence was that I spent considerably more time building my relationship with my children. Especially my daughter since she is the older of the two. I tend to think, perhaps mistakenly, that very young children are going to be more naturally bonded to their mothers. It takes more time with dads, no?
I made it a regular habit to share all of the duties around the house. Though we both work and make about the same money, I took care of the guy things like maintenance on the house and cars, while she did the finances and bills. All expenses were split 50/50 throughout our relationship. I also tried to make it a point for us to have more alone time together, though not nearly the 3 hours uninterrupted a day that Dr. Harley recommends. Part of the problem with that was our sleeping patterns which I will get into later.
After my first 2 or 3 counseling sessions by myself, KB (my W) finally agreed to join me. Over time I think my actions proved to her more and more how serious and committed I was and the emotional wall that she had built up between us started to slowly come down. Over time she became increasingly friendly and even affectionate.
Finally, after over 4 months of this torturous but cathartic experience, we took a trip to Florida and had a wonderful time together. She was surprised by my calmness and confidence, even when we missed our flight and some of my luggage got lost. Things that would have stressed me out and made me short tempered before, didn't faze me.
It was on that trip that we finally made love again for the first time and she told me that she loved me. It was perhaps one of the most wonderful moments in my life (next to my wedding and the birth of my children). We still had a lot of healing to do, but I really felt like we had a bright future.
For the two years since then, I have maintained those habits that I had developed earlier. I tried to be attentive and engaged. I never hesitated in taking the kids alone when she had something to do - indeed, I relished our time alone together because my relationship with them grew perceptibly stronger each time. I attended all of her social functions and I shared in all of the household chores. Things that I had failed at before. I even bought her flowers on a regular basis just as a small expression of my love to her (which she has told told me that she interpreted as and nothing but an invitation for sex - not true). Additionally, I never stopped letting her know that I realized that I had been making mistakes in the past and that I only wanted to grow into the best husband, father, and person that I could be. She always seemed to understand and agree, and anytime she seemed to have reservations, I would ask for honest specific criticism and redouble my efforts. Our friends and family said that they noticed the change as well.
For the last two years, I thought we were a good couple and good parents. We would occasionally bicker and fight, but nothing that lasted more than a day or two at the most. When warranted, I would acknowledge that she was right and apologize and then wait until she could come to accept it. Forgiveness is something that is not immediate with her. When she acknowledged her mistakes and apologized, I would accept it immediately. I think that was a big difference between us and she acknowledged her difficulty in knowing how to resolve a fight on her end.
Part of the problem that we continued to have is how we would approach conflict and communication. Frankly, she wasn't very good at it. I don't want to call KB shallow, because that's unfair, but she is a very surface-oriented person. She likes superficial things, and though smart and well educated, doesn't seek much in the way of intellectual pursuits. She's more of reality-TV than Masterpiece Theater kind of gal. And she isn't very introspective either. Philosophical and esoteric thoughts just aren't for her. I knew this from the time we first started dating, but I accepted it as one small difference versus all of the wonderful qualities I'd seen in her.
Fast forward to the present... For the last several days I had noticed that KB has been cranky and moody. I would regularly ask her, "Is something wrong? Did I do something?" I would ask in a concerned and open manner, not in a defensive way. Her response was always, "No, I'm not upset with you. I'm just cranky - I don't know why."
She has a new boss at work and she hasn't been happy since his arrival, so I figured that had something to do with it. My job has changed recently do to a buy-out of my old company and I have been very unhappy at work also. I don't know how much of that has bled into our relationship. I have probably been too focused inward for several months because of it.
On Sunday night, after we put the kids down to bed, I asked her if we could talk. Surprisingly she agreed, as her usual MO would be to tell me how tired she was and she'd put me off. I told her that though she claims I'm not the problem, I seemed to be the only person she was cranky with.
She finally admitted that she has been growing increasingly unhappy in the relationship again. She feels like she has been forcing herself to have feelings and that they just don't come as naturally as they should. She said that she now feels as though things haven't really improved much since two years ago, and she no longer has ANY feelings for me whatsoever. Not even anger or resentment. I asked her if I had backslid on my commitments and she said that I had not. She felt that I had worked hard to change and done everything I was supposed to do, but she just wasn't into the marriage anymore. I asked her if we could try counseling again, and she said that she wouldn't be averse to seeing someone, but maybe just on her own.
What followed were two days of little speaking on her part, and two very sleepless nights for the both of us. I would try things to maintain a line of communication between the two of us, but her wall was completely up again. Finally yesterday she sends me an email of all things letting me know that she is done and has no interest in continuing to work it out. She feels as though we did all we could two years ago, it didn't take, and now she just wants out. She says that she has considered the kids and feels that her loss of love for me out-weighs the importance of having us all under one roof and that a hostile relationship between us would be worse for them anyway.
I can no longer get through to her. I can't even get her to consider a single session with our counselor. She feels that her mind is made up and there would be no point to him confirming what she already knows.
Finally last night after begging and pleading for her to reconsider, I gave up. I feel like I have run out of steam. As heartrending as it is, I just don't have the fight in me anymore. Not for a third time.
Don't get me wrong! If she changed her mind right now, I would throw myself into working to change again/more to make things work if she would too. But I just don't have the energy in me to try and get her to that point. I feel like I have made huge strides in the last several years, and I am a little resentful feeling that it's still not good enough for her.
She feels that I shouldn't HAVE to change. That love should come naturally and that it should not be such hard work. She thinks that we are too different and that I would only come to resent her for being forced to change who I am in the future. I can't get her to understand or believe that love is hard work and requires effort and compromise. She won't read this site or anything else and doesn't want to hear anything about "love units" or "love banks", etc...
So here we are. I have agreed to move out. The one small concession I got from her was to agree to a trial separation before starting divorce paperwork. I will start looking for a nearby apt so that I can be close to her and close to the kids. I want her to stay in the house (though she didn't want to at first). It is important to me that the children maintain their routines and remain in a familiar environment. My daughter will be starting at a very selective school for G&T kids this fall and my son will be transitioning into a new class at his Montessori school. I don't want them going through all of that while adjusting to a new place to live as well. I think my absence will be tough enough for them as it is.
She finally agreed to staying in the house. She told me that I could have anything inside that I want, and that she isn't interested in any of my assets nor is does she want help with any of her debts (very little of that on either side). Maintaining and paying on the house alone will be a stretch for her, but I promised to help out as much as I could while trying to maintain a comfortable household for myself and the kids. She also agreed to joint 50/50 custody; one week with her, one week with me. She understands the need for my home to be a nice place for them to want to be.
I figure I will sign a six month lease for now and if necessary within that time, we can file officially. In the meantime, she is letting me remain in the house while I get things in order (though we sleep in separate rooms now).
Some things to note that may or may not be pertinent... We both come from broken homes before it was the popular thing to do. She doesn't speak to her mother whom she felt was mentally abusive to both herself, her sisters, and her father. Her dad remarried and she is close to her step mom. My mother and father were separated for years until my mom could afford to file for divorce on her own. My dad was unreliable, unfaithful, abusive to my family, and just an all around [censored]. I have nothing to do with him. I have always been determined to be a better dad to my kids and so far, everyone says that I am succeeding.
These issues that KB and I have seem to be cyclical, or maybe just a coincidence. As I said before, this is the third event and they alway have a two year interval (03, 05, 07) and they always happen at this time of year. Also, my wife has some funky sleeping patterns. She falls asleep HARD at 8:30-9:00 just after the kids go down. Even sitting in the living room watching TV or talking it's like she can barely keep her eyes open. Then she's often awake at between 4 and 5 am. Sometimes as early as 3. Often she would leave the bed and try to sleep on the couch because she said it felt more comfortable. It has been so routine for so many years that I just took it for granted instead of a possible warning sign.
No one could seem to understand why she was having problems. At first we thought that she was too sedentary. But she has been going to gym regularly since Sept. She's lost a ton of weight, looks really great, and gets a lot of compliments. I suspect that has given her a new outlook on other prospects, though she denies any interest in anybody else now or for the foreseeable future.
But her sleeping patterns never improved. My brother, a doctor, suggested maybe it was RLS (restless leg syndrome) and said to try a sleeping aid like Ambien. She took that a few times and said that it helped a little bit, but she would feel a little foggy the next day. We even kicked the dogs out of our room and into the living room thinking they were keeping her up. All to no avail. Perhaps depression could be the cause? Whether it's a result of her unhappiness with me and our marriage or the root of our breakup, I don't know. Kind of a chicken or egg argument at this point.
Perhaps this time apart will do one of two things; make her happy and confirm her feelings that I am her problem, or make her realize that her unhappiness isn't related to me and rooted in something else. I don't know which. I refuse to hope too hard for the latter because I don't want to set myself up for disappointment should the worst case scenario occur. I'd rather just be resigned to that fate and be happily surprised otherwise.
Anyway, this brings me to the end of my tale of woe. Again, I want to thank anyone who made it this far. I suspect that this forum is loaded with people who have tragic stories of their own and who probably don't have the patience to make read through my own. I'm not even sure why I felt compelled to write this. Perhaps I am looking for advice or opinions or support. Constructive criticism is welcome as well because regardless of what happens, I just want to come out of this a better father and a better person. Thanks for listening. <img src="/ubbt/images/graemlins/smile.gif" alt="" />
