Honestly, this is going to be harder than exposing.

We need to help you say this in a good way to your wife to help her adjust. Hopefully others will pipe in and give their thoughts, but here is how I might frame it.

"Dear, I am committed to doing what it takes to build a happy marriage for us both. I do not want the marriage of the past where we lived separate lives. Part of the problem was that we slept apart and I know now that was a huge mistake that only drove a deeper wedge between us. It was a mistake for me to ever move out of OUR bedroom and I am committed to rectifying that mistake going forward."

WW: i will not sleep in there if you move in there!!!

Herb: I cannot stop you from sleeping elsewhere but I am committed to doing what it takes to rebuild our marriage.

Herb, there are no words to force her to like this, but your choice of words should strive to minimize the fallout.

It is not reasonable for you to sleep apart as a married couple if you intend on recovering your marriage. If she wants to continue that STATUS QUO, then she should sleep on the couch. She should experience DISCOMFORT as a result of that choice.

Discomfort = motivation to change

She has been pretty depressed, this started before the A and even before the Pre-A counseling started. My reaction (or non-reaction) to it really led to the complete disconnect between us about 2 years or so ago. It is still going on, so she really does not sleep well a lot of the times. She has said several times to me that she could settle for what her life had become, she is still in the "I have no hope for happiness" stage, at least partially.

How about something like this?

"I know our marriage became something that was not fulfilling for you and me. A big reason is that I took the easy way out and did not address the things that were causing us to drift into separate existences. A big contributor to that was how I abandoned our bed instead of addressing the issues that made sleeping together unpleasant. I now see what a huge mistake that was, how it drove us further apart than we were already becoming.

I am not holding on to our marriage to repeat the mistakes of the past. I am committed to making it what it should have been all along. I am not willing to settle for what we had, because it obviously was not good for either of us. Sleeping apart is a very real part of the things that lead us to where we were. Sleeping together is a very real part of us getting to where we should be."

Should I add anything about making a real dent in the weight issue, and that is continuing. I am at the lowest I have been since we married, within 15 lbs or so of that weight. I feel like I am even closer than that because I have increased my muscle mass some as well. I actually lost about 40 lbs while we dated.

I can see how she is skeptical about my motives now. I have shown in the past that the changes were not permanent. She tells me at times that I shouldn't be making these changes for her. I tell her that I am making them because it is the right thing to do, it was wrong to neglect them before, but I do hope they make a difference in how she sees me.

I want to ask something for clarification.

I have seen what seems to me to be contradictory lines of thinking, in this thread and others, for BS in the withdrawal stage of their post A marriage.

1. Don't try to meet EN now, it won't be accepted. Avoid the big LBs.

2. Now is the time to figure out EN and try to meet as many as possible.

I can see the logic in both positions.

Am I confusing 2 things?

Herb, she won't let you meet many needs while in withdrawal, but it is a good idea to still TRY.

Well, that makes sense. But I guess I was wondering about trying to really determine what they are, other than by my intuition.

I don't think she realizes how much I cherish her.

Move back to your bed.

Herb - what Mel said - TRY and meet her needs - but don't expect anything in return.

Yes that is what I have been trying, at least in my eyes. But I either get nothing in return or even negatives. The experience on here has prepared me for that though. Like tonight, we were watching TV after she came home. I asked her something about her work, She said, "I just got home, I don't want to talk about work. I don't ask you about making widgets all day. Is that all you can talk to me about." I just looked at her blankly and said nothing else.

In another book I read, that I thought was very good, it is called speaking the others love language. But it doesn't seem that I ever figured it out before. I always have done more than my share of things around the house. She usually works later than I do, so I have usually cooked and cleaned up. But I felt unappreciated. I realize that is not high on her list now, doing things that have to be done anyway.

I just have to figure out what it is that will show her how much I love her.

Personal pride and responsibility, how I take care of my appearance, our possessions, our house and cars, always seemed to mean a lot to her. She really loves her father, and he is one that is always doing something, checking this and fixing that. I never was really taught that growing up. I keep the grass cut, but sometimes it might go a little too long. I trim , but not every week. I don't drive her car, so unless she reminds me to change to oil because it is overdue, I don't think of it. Things like that. I am really trying to change that, make lists. Dress nicer even if there is no reason. But these things honestly don't come naturally to me.

Feeling you have to work your way to acceptance is really discouraging. I believe that is why God doesn't do it that way, because He knows we will always come up short.

I do believe that the love I am showing will have to eventually start to stick if I can understand how to give it in the right way. I have been clueless most of my life. I just wonder if I always will be.

PS, thanks BigK for the heads up on the sermon, I found it and burned it to CD, I have listened to it 3 times today.

Awesome!!

But God!!!

What a great message.

I sent an email to OMW yesterday asking her to call me, explaining how we needed to make sure this was dead. Got a message from her to leave her alone.

Said OK, hope things work out for her.

OM probably threw enough lies at her that she is in denial.

Are you sleeping in your own bed now?

Will be tonight.

TJ/

I wanna hear the sermon... please Big K. My email is on my sig line.

/TJ

I found it on a site called podbean. Search for Phil Pringle. He has several semons on this site.

Big K also said it is on Itunes

Man, I missed this site will it was down. I really felt isolated and defeated yesterday, and then I was cut off from my main outlet.

This weekend could be interesting. I went to Walmart yesterday to pick up somethings, and while I was there, I picked up a small bouquet of flowers and put them in a vase and placed them by the sink in her bathroom. She did not get home until after 7, we ate and then I went to workout some. I returned about 9, she was in the bedroom watching TV (I am still having to fight myself to keep from calling it her bedroom). I took her a bottle of water up, and she asked why I bought the flowers, that she didn't want them, that D had asked her if he liked them. She sees things like that as me putting her on the spot. I shut the door and told her if D asking her that was a problem, then it was a problem she had. I was going to continue to do the things I needed to. Went into the things I wanted to say about how a big part of the distance between us was the fact that I had chosen to sleep in a different bed, and I was going to come back to sleep in our bed on Friday (I let her have one more night, since she had to work early, I still can't get the hang of this completely yet). I hoped she would sleep with me. She said she wouldn't, I said there were 2 other beds and a couch.

Wife: "So you are going to force yourself on me."
Me: "I am sleeping in our bed"
Wife: "You better be ready for the consequences"
Me: "I'm ready"

I had mentioned a couple of days ago maybe she and I could go out to eat on Friday. She said "I was considering going to eat, but not now."

I left the room then. Came back a little later and told her that there were parts of the old me that were dead and parts that were damaged. I was not the same anymore. That some of the parts needed to die, because she had been able to just throw me away. But one part that was damaged that I didn't like was trust, trust in our marriage and trust in our love. That I was in it for the long haul if she was, we started out in a good place and I knew we could end up in a better place. But that we could also end up right where we were, and that was not acceptable, I would not settle for things being like that.

She did not say a lot during this, It seemed she was listening.

I guess we will see tonight.

Hi Herb . . . I am following your struggle. I hope things go well for you this weekend. She may surprise you and "turn the corner". You know what the bible says about pride! You sound like a real nice person. I'm sure she will see that again soon!

Thanks for the encouragement. It has only been two weeks last night since the exposure occurred, so turning the corner may be too much to hope for. BigKahuna said it the most clearly to me