I'm proud of myself last night - I applied what I talked about in my post from yesterday.  My W and I played a game last night, sitting together on the couch (which I enjoyed very much).  After the game, we decided to watch TV, so I got up to get both of us a glass of water.  When I came back, she was now laying on the couch, so I had a choice, I could ask her if I could sit on the couch with her (we do that sometimes, more recently, where I will sit and she will lay with her legs on me) or I could sit in a chair.  I wanted to sit on the couch.  I wanted to be close to be affectionate while we were watching TV.  So, I wanted to ask her if I could join her on the couch.  But - I knew this would violate our boundaries.  Being vigilant I reminded myself that she is in the driver's seat regarding whether we are affectionate or not.  So - I didn't ask her.  I didn't hint or try to coerce.  I just sat in the chair.  This wasn't extremely hard, but it wasn't extremely easy.  There was a part of me that thought perhaps she wanted me to sit next to her.  But I know enough from experience now that I am often wrong when I think that.  Events like this (where I consciously embrace an opportunity not to violate a boundary) happen relatively frequently, but I don't really share with the board.  Since this one was so fresh and directly related to what I had posted about earlier, I thought it was apt to share.
 
On another note, I wanted to vent a bit with the group.  When we went to bed last night (after watching TV), I was getting a vibe from my W that she was mad at me.  It was relatively strong.  So, I asked her if she was ok (to which she paused for one moment and then simply responded yes).  I concluded the conversation by telling her that if I had done something to upset her I would like to know.  That was the extent of our conversation about the topic and I don't think my bringing it up was a love buster.  Moments like this can be frustrating for me.  I'm pretty sure (but not positive) that she was frustrated with me about something.  But I have absolutely no idea what that is!  How can I change my behavior or learn from past mistakes if I don't know what I did wrong?  On the other hand, I may be making the entire thing up in my head - I could have been reading the situation wrong.  But again, how can I know this if my W is not sharing with me when she is upset?  Grrrr.  Anyway, I'm not really upset.  I don't expect things to really be that much different for quite a while (if ever).  My past disrespectful judgments have done their job in creating this environment.  I will let it go.  But letting it go doesn't mean sweeping it under the rug (as I have had a tendency to do in my life, which is common, but really unhealthy for an addict).  So, instead of sweeping, I just wanted to vent to the group, to acknowledge the situation and how frustrating it is.  There - vented!

It's time to take your marital communication to the next level.

Most families in addiction tend to do a lot of "mystical mind reading" - as if!

And you are doing that dance right now. Did you think of just asking her last night if she was angry with you for any reason? and open up a line of communication with her? Why did you assume she was angry with you?

One of the "therapy" games I played while recovering as an adult child of an alcoholic was created by Claudia Black - "The Stamp Game - a game about feelings". We'd draw a certain color of card that had a feeling printed on it, and we learned how to talk about our feelings.

Since addicts and their family members spend so much time trying to just read each other's minds, and usually getting it wrong, but in the process, getting upset ourselves, we find recovery in just learning to talk about feelings, and learning how to trust each other enough that we're safe talking about feelings.

Consider the possibility that she wasn't upset at all last night, but that you got upset due to assumptions - you know what they say happens when you assume!

Your post raises questions about where my W and I are in our relationship.  Our years of communications shaped by my addiction (including the full realm of manipulations) affect everything we say (and don't say - and think).  The only way to fix this is for us to work on our communication.  But, and this is what I was trying to focus on a few weeks ago when I first posted about the status of our relationship, my W is not currently in a place where she is willing to work on our communication.  My asking her to work on our communication (which automatically involves a level of sharing and risk) would be asking her to do something that she has told me she is not ready for.  Simply asking her would be disrespecting her - it would be a love buster.  So, I need to figure out how to work on our communication without input from my W.  That is extremely difficult and I am kind of bewildered about where to begin.  For example, last night I did think about asking my W if she was upset at me about something, but I was afraid to do so because asking such questions can be interpreted as my attempt to have a "relationship" talk - dangerous from the perspective of love busters.  So - I'm kind of trapped!  For the time being (which may be a long time) I think the best thing is to avoid saying anything that pushes her to tell me more than she is willing to while at the same time not pushing her to have a relationship talk.  In other words, focus on avoiding love busters. 

In the past I have tricked myself into thinking that I need to take some risk in our relationship by pushing my W to talk about this.  But, I have slowly come to realize this is not taking risk - it is pushing my W to be where she is not.  That is selfish.  It is for me, not for us.  So, I shall keep plodding along.  Trying not to engage in love busters.  Trying not to sweep under the rug when I'm flustered or confused, but not become obsessed either.

If you think I'm off track, please let me know.

Hello Everyone -

I wanted to pass on an event that occurred last night and share with you the range of emotions that accompanied it.

Last night when my W and I were going to bed, after our normal in-bed chatter, my W said to me, "Goodnight, I love you." Now, the "Goodnight" part is pretty typical. But "I love you?" Now that was a major difference. And - it was unprompted. My immediate response was to acknowledge by saying, "I love you too."

Here is the range of emotions - I was very happy to hear it. Internally, I thought to myself, wow, that is really big for her to say this. She hasn't said this in a very long time. It made me happy. But, I wasn't giddy, or overwhelmed with joy. I think I realize that this doesn't mean we are out of the woods, or we have reached a new plateau in our marriage. I made these realizations almost immediately. Rather, it is a sign to me that I am doing the right things at the right time. It tells me that I can still mess this up, that I need to continue to be vigilant in my interactions with her, and continue to avoid lovebusters. It also tells me that the risks I am taking (taking some initiative on things where I used to rely on her) are working. So thinking through all of that balances my happiness.

As I have tried to explain to my family, there is no endgame in all of this. There is no moment where I will look at our relationship and say, "Ah - we were healed and a healthy couple." It is a process, full of fits and starts. Our marriage is still a wreck and my W telling me that she loves me doesn't change that. But - it does tell me that I am doing the right things. It tells me that there is opportunity for me to meet some of her emotional needs. It tells me that she is taking risk - she knows that I have overreacted in similar situations in the past and I can do it again. These are all positive things. And even though our relationship is a wreck, I'll take it. Today, it makes me happy. I recognize that I can still (and always can) mess this up.

Thanks again to everyone who has been reading and posting, your insights are incredibly helpful. Hopefully tomorrow or Monday I'll be ready to post about talking to my W about going to an SA meeting. I have conceptually talked to my W about it, and talked through boundaries about who I can and can't talk to on an individual basis (the group is co-gender). The next step is to talk to my W about actually going to the specific meeting. I'll let you know how it goes.

Something really bad happened last night - I violated my wife's physical boundaries. Without asking her consent (which itself would have been a violation), I reached out, wrapped my arms around her, and rubbed her back. I did this in our bed, in the place where she should feel most safe and secure.

Here's the context: when we we falling asleep last night in bed, I wanted very much to ask my wife if I could cuddle with her (which is not an uncommon desire on my part). But I knew that asking her would violate the boundaries we have in place so I didn't. I fell asleep fine with this. Sometime in the middle of the night, I woke up (or was half-awake) sensing that my wife was close to me (king bed - not common to be close during the night) and so I wrapped my arms around her and rubbed her back. As soon as I woke up enough to realize what I was doing I immediately stopped and pulled my arms back. But it was too late, the damage was done. I had violated the very boundary that I knew was important to my wife. I'm not even sure she was awake, or knew that it happened. Or, if she was awake if it bothered her. But, it was wrong.

I don't know how I could have done that? I have done similar things before, but carried them farther before stopping. At least I didn't do that. But, I cannot believe I did this. It is a sign (I think) that on some level I am still using my wife as an object, rather than being with her as a partner. It represents everything ugly about my addiction (btw - I don't think I was being sexual, that was not the driver). I have got to figure out a way to deal with this. Something is very wrong where I can unconsciously use my wife like that. It doesn't become ok that I wasn't fully awake. Rather, it becomes more of a challenge. When fully awake I don't do this. How do I carry that same action into my half-awake state?

Plan of attack to deal with it: post similar thread on RN; talk to my counselor at our next appointment; bring up at my first SA meeting (once I finally talk to my wife about going).

Plan of attack with respect to my wife: take responsibility by apologizing; follow the previous plan of attack to deal with this behavior.

I am very upset at myself right now - as you can see from my previous post, things were moving in good direction. I knew I had to be vigilant because I have messed that up before. Not barely 24 hours later I messed that up again.

Well, touching my wife during the night was most certainly a setback in our relationship. There has been absolutely no physical affection since. She's not completely withdrawn, but she is most certainly frustrated. And she should be. I violated her space. I am making her feel uncomfortable around me, exactly the opposite of what I have been working so hard for.

I was depressed about this last night, and my wife senses this and asks me what was wrong. And, of course, I can't even tell her what's bothering me! It would be relationship talk. Off-limits. What a crappy relationship we have.

Sometimes I just don't see how we ever get out of this mess. I don't see how I ever get to a point where I stop hurting her in some way or how she ever gets to a point where she starts letting me in. I trick myself sometimes, telling myself that things are better now than they used to me, there is not as much tension, we are co-parenting well, we make future plans together, etc. But really, if I'm honest, we are just glorified roommates. And, it sucks. It's very depressing. And when I reflect on the fact that we are modeling this type of relationship to our children, it just pains me. I can't help but feel we are setting them up for the same type of failures/relationship we currently have. My addiction has already hurt them so much and I don't see it getting better.

Sorry for the depressing post, but the process of posting (and getting feedback) is cathartic. If I'm not honest, there really is no growth, even if the honesty is depressing.

I really think that communication between my wife and I is the area that could stand to make the most improvement and have the biggest positive impact on our relationship.  A conversation we had last night reminded me of this. 
 
In broad strokes, the conversation involved a potential visit from my family, which timing is the weekend following my wife's birthday - the weekend that I was planning on making about my wife (although I had not yet asked her if she would like to go out to dinner with me).  Bringing this up to my wife was a trigger in many ways - there is much unresolved anger toward my family and much unresolved anger toward me with respect to how I have interacted with my family (and how I have permitted my family to intersect my relationship with my wife).  My wife feels on the outside with my family and is rightly upset that my family has not reached out to her to provide support during this entire process.  I am a product of my family, and my own immaturity that I carry around is a reflection of the emotional immaturity of my entire family.
 
During the conversation a number of things were said by my wife that I find confusing and unsure about what she is really feeling or what she really wants.  I am not really hoping that this post can find a resolution to those - rather my hope is that by exploring the conversation I can find better ways to listen to what my wife is telling me so that we are communicating on the same level.  I believe that much (certainly not all) of our communication problems stem from my not really "getting" what she is trying to say.  She herself said that last night - she doesn't express her frustration to me generally (in this case about my family and this potential visit and how it impacts her birthday) because she said I don't know when she is venting or when she is telling me that I need to act on something.  That is true - so true.  For example, what I thought she was telling me last night was that she doesn't want my family to visit and ruin her birthday (she said something to the effect of there hasn't been a day about her in two years) - my take away from this was that she wanted me to tell my family that this was not a good weekend.  But just a moment later she said that she didn't want me running off to tell my family that they shouldn't visit this weekend (I have in the past effectively "blamed" my wife when getting out of things like this and she is worried that I will make her the fall guy).  Which was followed by the comment that this is why she doesn't tell me things because I don't know when she is venting or not.
 
I had a feeling during the entire conversation that this was a processing conversation - that no decisions were being reached - that she was actually sharing (which on some levels hurt because of what she was saying but on other levels felt hopeful because she is actually sharing, which hasn't happened in a while).  I had a feeling that she doesn't really know what she wants.  She did say that at the end - that she has so much anger toward my family and toward me right now that she can't think through anything and so we ended the conversation.  But, before getting to this point, she also made a comment that was quite hurtful.  With respect to going out with me on her birthday she said that the only reason she goes out with me at all is because she feels obligated (we have been getting a babysitter every few weeks and the two of us have been going out) and that she would prefer to just go out with her friends on her birthday.  It is very hard to hear her tell me this.  It hurts.  This is the same line she used when we stopped going to counseling as a couple - I'm only doing it because I feel obligated.  What am I supposed to do with that?  My response to her last night was that I don't want her going out with me simply because she is feeling obligated and if she would prefer to go out with her friends that is what she should do.  If she doesn't want to go out with me, going out with me is only going to build up more resentment in her.  There is no enthusiastic agreement there - only danger.  I also told her that I would love to keep going out with her and I'm not driving her away by responding the way I did.  I also told her that I understand the range of human emotions is all over the place and she may be feeling one way at one moment and another way at another moment.  But here is the thing that invariably happens - she won't bring it up again - she makes a comment that is hurtful and is subject to misunderstanding and then she wont ever address it again.  If I try to bring it up, that is viewed as pressure on her to have relationship talk, which is off limits. 
 
We really need help on our conversation skills, I just don't know where to begin.  Conversation seems inherently couples focused, but she is not able/willing to actively work on our relationship, including how we converse.  So, how do I, without assistance or input from my wife, work on this?  I've read Mars/Venus, and it was a bit helpful, but I need more.

I have decided to start a new thread, which you can find here.

But, quick wrap-up here before closing the thread. After a one-time miss with my first try at SA (I went to the meeting at the posted time/place but they were no longer meeting there) I have now gone to two sessions over the course of two weeks. I plan on going again this week. Although I have issues with much of SA and the twelve steps, I believe there are genuine nuggets there for me to work on, especially with regards to my development as a more emotionally mature person. Many of these people have the same issues with immaturity and it will be good to converse about this stuff.

Thanks for all who followed and posted to this thread - you were immensely helpful.