It all sound futile why even try to fix the marriage when the other person keeps telling you the marriage is dead..

You don't take this on to manipulate her to come back. You take it on to make YOU a better person regardless of the outcome. THEN she might see the changes in you because YOU want them. Not her.

Stop trying to force her or manipulate her to see things YOUR way. Let her see them on her own. You invite her to company you on your best days and focus on making her happy. And go from there. If you don't put your heart in it for you then she will feel your trying to control her.

Edit: put it this way. Would you date yourself right now? Would you marry a guy like you if you were some other woman looking at your behaviour from an objectionable point of view? Think about that really hard for a bit. Examine your behaviour.

MNG

She still loves me .. she told me so two days ago..
she wrote: I still love you but I can not let you to treat me the way you treat me...

Could I read that there is some hope in that statement?

Thanks read both... I wish I was in either of there place... wife want to fix marriage...but my wife does not

I hear what your saying but doesn't prison suppose to rehabilitee the prisoner and once he does this time society forgive is wrong doings and give him another chance... no

As long as you continue to deflect and minimize like this, I would tell your wife to stay far away from you. You are not safe.

What have you done to get into a good anger management program that teaches relaxation techniques?

Hi, blake. Welcome to Marriage Builders.

A wife not being willing to give a marriage another chance is a VERY typical Marriage Builders situation. Frequently it involves a lot of work for the husband to eliminate his love busters and learn to meet his wife's emotional needs.

Read and reread and understand Dr. Harley's Basic Concepts material, particularly the material about the Love Bank. Your account in your wife's Love Bank is going to dictate how she feels about you and how she treats you. When your balance is extremely in the red, she will hate you, and will be totally unwilling to recover your marriage.

You can change that. You can't change that by persuading her to give you a chance. But you can change that by learning to be extremely good at making love bank deposits and avoiding love bank withdrawals. So, for example, having a conversation with her about how you think she should give you another chance - that will be a love bank withdrawal. It will affect her feelings toward you negatively and will actually make her LESS likely to want to recover your marriage.

You will have to approach this with an extreme respect for her feelings and her desire to end the marriage. Instead of contradicting those feelings and desires, you will have to work on making massive love bank deposits every time you are in contact with her - and you must avoid withdrawals at all costs! Your balance in her love bank is so far in the red that you cannot afford any more withdrawals. So:

* Do not debate her desires, feelings, or opinions. Don't express frustration at her choice. Don't talk about your belief that she should forgive you and give you another chance.
* Don't fight with her at all, ever, about anything. Fighting will be like having a nuclear war - it'll kill all of your chances. You will not win that way at all.
* Don't do anything that SHE would feel is demanding, disrespectful, or angry. You won't be able to debate her feelings on this, so you'll have to let her feelings be the judge. No yelling, no disrespect, no judgment or debate of her perspectives, no telling her what she should do (demanding).

Do you think you can do this? If so, there is a good chance you can recover your marriage.

Thanks for chiming in marcos and Prisca. My posts were beginning to feel redundant.

Prisca,
I don't believe I'm minimizing what I did and I take full responsibility for how I hurt my wife..the only thing I was trying to say is that my abuse (not that it makes a difference) was not one of trying to control my wife and what she thought or did and I have never belittled or made her fell that her opinion didn't matter, in fact I followed her advice most of the time... my outburst / yelling was out of frustration be being hurt by something she said, did or misunderstand what she meant.. it was a knee jerk reaction on my part.. Completely wrong on my part.. and yes my yelling did scare her "one" time .. So I know what I did was absolutely wrong.. just saying that it was never done because I wanted to control her, intimidate her, ridicule, minimize her opinion... I admire and respect my wife very much... she is a wonderful women and does not deserve to be spoken lit that...

I'm seeing a therapist for my anger and taking Wellbutren to calm me down.. It has worked partially (I have not most my temper with my children in 1 1/2 months... I have time to think before I say anything and that has made all the difference in the world.. As with my wife..we never lived together so I can't say how I would react to things... but my frustration, sadness and hurt that I feel because she has no interest in even entertaining working on our marriage and saying it is dead... I have not handled that well... I have sent her mean and angry txted in response to her complete refusal to do anything to save this marriage. I looked into Angry Mgt. classes but the next one doesn't start until April...

Markos,
Thank you for all you advise .. I know it is good advice and I will try to follow it...

I would like to add something to my story: the second to last fight she and I had was on 12/24 and that was me yelling..after that fight our outburst by be she asked to have three days alone ... after those three day we got back together ... I slept over about 10 days later on a Sunday night, on Monday morning I woke up and she and I talked over morning coffee about what things had to get done that week .. (install carpet in apt. so I can get it rented, fix a doors and things like that) we agreed on everything and I asked her if she could make a list of them as she was sitting at the desk and had paper and pen 9plus I had ADHD and lists help me.. I did not know I had ADHD at this time -- I found out later 2 weeks) she made the list and gave it to me.. I told that I thought it was nice how we were communicating and working as a team... she agreed.. then for some reason I asked her that I hoped that her doing the list for me was done like something you do for your husband (the team) and not done like a Mother does a list for her son... to which she said that it was like a list a Mother does for her son... I said come on I hope that is not how you are looking at this and she said that it was.. (mother/son) I wanted to avoid any fighting so again I said don't say or think that because that makes me feel terrible and there is a big difference a wife making a list for her husband 9team) and a mother making a list for her son... She said there is no difference and I again told her there was a huge difference.. she stuck to her opinion and I got offended I got some of my clothes I had at her place and put them in a bag and when my boy was ready to go to school I took my bag and left.. Later that day she txted me and said that we should talk... I txted that we had nothing to talk about until she apologized for what she said.. she wouldn't apologize and just said we should meet and talk this other... me like a jack [censored] said no.... The next day I txted her and said that we should meet and that I wanted to work things out between us... We met that night and I felt she was going to call our marriage over so I said to her going to get a divorce and she said yes... and that was how we are were we are today.. separated and divorce will be 2 years from know....
When we spoke a few days later she said she was there that night to try and make peace and work on the marriage but when I said if she was going to divorce she said ... Ok / yes... She told me that what broke the camels back was me not wanting to talk the day of the fight...
Does anything said here (above) make any difference or shed a new light on the dynamics of our relationship and how or if it can be fixed.
Now she will not even entertain working on the marriage and one of her boys told me there is 0 chance that she will change her mind... I asked why: and he said because she made a decision ( I guess once she makes a decision she doesn't change her mind)..
Any thoughts... any advice

Ypu should be in plan A.
Avoid love busters and try to make love bank deposits.
Are you trying to meet her emotional needs?

In addition to this, know that it takes a lot of time for Plan A to work. Wives need to see that their husbands have made real change. Keep making deposits without expectations of reciprocation because I would guess that right now she doesn't trust you have changed and has checked out. You have to be the one that builds the bridge.

Don't involve her Son.

As for her sticking to her decisions, she also decided to Marry you and said she wad committed to you, didn't she?

She can change her mind once again.

But, you must not have ANY angry outbursts and eliminate ALL of your Love Busters.

Don't ever bring up the topic of Divorce unless you want to pressure her into making an assertive stance for herself because of being backed into a corner.

And, learn from your exchange with her regarding WHY she helped you out by making a list for you.

It doesn't matter WHY, but only mattered that she did. You should just validate her efforts and be graciously thankful, without going overboard.

LTL

blake, in addition to continuing to reread through the Basic Concepts, I recommend you follow the procedure in that article that described the biofeedback device. This is going to be very important for you because you are so emotional:

How to Negotiate when One of You is an Emotional Person

Right now you are so emotional that when you read our posts you are getting emotional and responding with a lot of justifications. We can tell that means you are really only receiving a slim percentage of our message. I recommend re-reading your entire thread, without responding to us at all, and making a todo list of things you need to do. Then work through the todo list. If you focus too much on telling us stuff it will prevent you listening to what you need to hear.

That is what I am telling you, friend. This is not going to change for quite some time. I am describing to you the procedure to change this. It is not surprising that she feels this way. It's not news to me or anyone else on this thread, and it shouldn't be news to you.

If you want to change it, you are going to have to make a lot of changes:
* Get control of your emotions
* Make massive love bank deposits every day
* Avoid love bank withdrawals ENTIRELY

So? What does any of this have to do with the price of tea in China?

Here's the facts: you abused your wife with angry outbursts. Any attempt on your part to explain why you did it, or how you didn't mean it, is by default belittling to her. So stop it. Nobody cares why you abused her. SHE certainly doesn't care why. She just wants you to stop hurting her.

You are not going to get any credit for intentions.


And you are still abusing her.
She has every right to refuse to work on the marriage with you.

This----^

Good advice Marcos. Right now all I read is justifications.

Blake... Feelings FOLLOW actions. Do the actions we suggest and your feelings will eventually follow. Then those feelings will spill over to your wife if you engage her with a positive un expecting and changed attitude with a plan of just compensation for her.

You can do it! Slow down. Take a deep breath. We all know the agony you are experiencing one way or another and know what we are talking about.

MNG

---^ this right here set you up for a fail. You already knew the state she was in from your abuse.. Why would you throw more fuel on the fire. All you had to do was THANK her for the list and leave it at that. It doesn't matter what the context of the list was but you gave her ammo.



It how she is looking at it now but I bet she wasn't prior to your comment. (Which was very disrespectful btw)


You should have sucked up your pride and went and talked to her. You owe her BIG time for your outbursts. Of course she wouldn't appologize, the entire argument was your suggestion. You planted the thought and she went with it. Women are global thinkers.. This will float in her head until you SHOW her your capable of acting like a man. Men are to be the rock and her protector .. Unmoved for the most part but also soft to her concerns. She does not feel protected and your anxiety is destroying your cognitive thinking ability and causing you to have obsesive thoughts. Your going to need to get a grip on your emotions and become the rock for your wife. She sees no stability in you right now.


Again.. You shouldn't have said or called her out on the divorce issue. Should have tried to find a positive spin on your meeting. You got 2 years to prove to your wife you can man up and get a hold of yourself and learn to control ALL your emotions and anxiety. That will win her back. Slowly invite her out on dates with you and avoid negative relationship talk. Your wife likely has a high need for conversation so anything negative you say can and will be used against you at this point so avoid negativity while you work on your behaviour and change it FOR GOOD.

.... Next post for more

Of course she was there to fix things. I'm sure she still loves you. She just wants you to be the man she needs. Who will cherish her.. Protect her heart.. Not scare her.. Your emotions are scaring her. I'm sure if you give it some time.. Find some positive interactions to invite her to and find a way to spin everything positively. Don't overthink what she says or read into things too dep and say stuff like "so we are getting the divorce" and "do you do things for me as a mother to son or wife to husband" any negative spin she can go on she will at this point. So cut it out. Work on yourself to make PERMANENT changes that will show your wife your the rock she needs.. the protector she needs. The MAN of her dreams.

MNG

A whole bunch of verbal diarrhea pouring out of your mouth here.

From now on, evaluate everything you say to her (before you say it) with these measuring sticks:

"Better to remain silent and be though a fool than to speak out and remove all doubt." - Abraham Lincoln

"Put a bridle on thy tongue; set a guard before thy lips, lest the words of thine own mouth destroy thy peace... on much speaking cometh repentance, but in silence is safety." - William Drummond

Or, to sum both of these up:

LOOSE LIPS SINK SHIPS!!!!

You must start thinking before you speak, and using a socially appropriate filter on your mouth.