Hello, this is my very first post. Please read my story:

I've been married for 7 years. We have two small kids: 2 and 5. Our marriage has been rocky since the start. We married very quickly, after only 6 months of dating. I am a practicing Christian (Catholic), my wife is Catholic but in name only. For the last year, my wife has completely emotionally detached herself from me. We sleep in separate beds, and there is no affection or connection whatsoever. For 3 months she asked me to leave the house, which I did. We went to 6 months of counselling which she has recently terminated. We both came from very difficult family backgrounds. Her parents divorced when she was young, and it was not an easy divorce. They got back together and separated several times. There were custody disputes, and my wife had a childhood suicide attempt. In short, she learned at a young age to completely detach as a means of protection/survival. Myself, my father was a verbally abusive alcoholic. I inherited anger issues as a result. Throughout the course of our marriage, my anger became a major issue. I was never physical, but I was verbally abusive, and lost control many times. After my wife asked me to leave, I attended a very intensive anger management course of therapy (concurrent with couples counselling) and slowly learned how to control my emotions. Over the last year my ability to control my emotions has gone from very little to excellent. Our marriage counsellor has given me the green light though I realize that my commitment to anger management is a daily struggle that I will carry with me for the rest of my life. I've also been alcohol free for 4 years. The problem is, my wife is completely unwilling to try and forgive and re-connect. I realize that many will read this post and say that I am getting what I deserve, and to some extent I would agree. That being said, our counsellor has made it clear that there is really nothing more I can do AND that she feels my wife has many deep seated issues from her childhood that are responsible for MANY of the problems in our marriage. My questions is simple: What can I do to support my wife if she absolutely refuses individual counselling or couples counselling? Short of daily prayer, there is little I can do. It has been almost a year of non-connection between the two of us. I miss her dearly, and every second I have to stare into her empty eyes feels like a spear through my heart. I have accepted that she is unwilling to even try to reconnect so I try to keep myself happy by going out with friends and doing things (excercise, hobbies, etc.) to keep myself positive. I was on another forum where 90% of the responders were divorcees advocating divorce. I love my wife, and I am called to serve Christ. I heard his call to marriage, and his call was to marry this woman who I love with everything God has given me. Prayers and advice are welcome. God Bless. p.s. part of the problem was that I adopted a bit of a 'martyr' attitude in the marriage where I tried to accept all fault. I went to psychologists who said there was nothing wrong with me, and all 3 counsellors said that although I did have issues controlling my emotions, they really did not classify my anger as being of such a level so as to warrant the extreme levels of detachment that my wife has exhibited. It's a complex situation. I am trying to avoid a "blame" discussion. I have my issues and she has hers and I am simply trying to find the path back to reconnection.

Promuse,

Welcome to marriage builders and I'm sorry to hear about the hurt you are your wife have caused each other.

Although you are fighting to hold on to the no divorce part of the christian belief it doesn't sound like God has played very strong role in the rest of your marriage from your post. Is their a reason for such a strong feeling about this tenant? And, does your wife share your conviction about this tenant?

I want you to know first of all the Dr. H. doesn't share this tenant and God doesn't leave you with no out. Among christians their are 2 reason God will allow divorce and and remarriage. The first one is obvious and affair (which I have a hard time believing your wife is not having one). And the second one isn't as obvious but certainly clear, that is abandonment. The bible does allow separation for any reason but you can not remarry.

I don't know if you can save you marriage but the 1st and 2nd steps you should do at the same time is Plan A and Snoop to find out who has been meeting her emotional needs since she hasn't been letting you.

If you find out she is having an affair (which I have said before I think she is), then we can help you with strategies that will end the affair quicker and allow you the chance to get her back.

The reason I think she may be having and affair is because I have dealt with a few couples who doesn't consider divorce an option but the dislike and sometimes hate each other, because of their believes they don't have affairs or porn (which is the same as an affair), so they keep on reconnecting with each other. Connecting is built into us and it is even stronger in most women, so if she is not connecting with you then she is connection with someone else.

Of course you have done a lot in the marriage to justify her fear of connecting with you again and I don't know if she will turn to you again. All you can do is give it your all which as I have told you is Plan A and snoop. If you are not willing to take those first steps then you are not as resolved to save your marriage as you claim. If you don't already have His Needs her Needs for parents, and Love busters I would get both copies right away and start reading Love busters first as you apply Plan A.

Good luck and keep us updated. And of cause I have prayed for you guys before I posted this.

Hi Promuse, welcome to Marriage Builders. I am sorry for the reasons that have brought you here but you are in the right place. I would first suggest that you leave the "childhood issues" in the past. They are a needless distraction to your current problems and their mention makes it hard to understand your situation. No one has a perfect childhood but it has nothing to do with adult problems, it only brings the problems of the past into the present.


Your post is very vague and I had to pore over it twice to ferret this out. What happened that caused her to ask you to leave? Please describe your EXACT ACTIONS.

Hi, I'm going to refrain from continuing with this discussion. It pains me to see people (life4799) automatically assume that there is an affair going on. Emotional detachment is real, and when a spouse detaches it is not an automatic assumption of infidelity. It's really damaging and irresponsible to so casually offer up such a suggestion when you know so little of my situation. I came here on the recommendation of someone who said that it's a bit more of an open-minded forum.I am sure there is good advice to be had, but I don't have what it takes to filter through the bad advice. Thanks and God Bless. p.s. life4799, who are you to judge the role of God and "how much of a role" he has played in my marriage? Do you know the mind of God, and are so qualified to make such proclamations? Careful my friend.

Promuse,

Wow, one response and you are out of here. In case you are still reading here, I'll echo Mel's question. Why did you and your wife separate? Why did you leave the house?



AM

I will tell you what is damaging and irresponsible, Sir. It is to allow a newcomer to come here and waste his time focusing all of his efforts on what he thinks is a typical marriage problem when all the time there is an affair in the woodworks. While he spends time spinning his wheels, the affair becomes more and more entrenched.

RARELY, RARELY does an "abused" wife ask her husband to move out. We usually have to spend weeks and months persuading her to kick out her abusive husband. It takes dynamite to get her to kick him out.

But when a wife asks her husband to move out, it is almost always due to an affair. This is why we ask people to rule it out. Because if we are treating you for heart disease and you actually have cancer, you will die on the table!

Take a look at the words of Dr. Bill Harley, clinical psychologist and founder of Marriage Builders, has to say on this subject:

she wanted an 'in-house' trial separation. I said I wasn't going to be a restricted captive in my own house so I moved into an apartment down the street. Not everyone who asks for a trial separation is having an affair, but I guess your Leader has all of the answers. Good-bye.

Many wayward wives ask for the in house pretend "separation." [they want to keep the husband around to babysit and take out the trash] It means they want to move into the guestroom and run around with no accountability. They are all having affairs.

Have you checked to see if she is having an affair?

Can you please answer my question?

How can anybody help you when you have such a short fuse? Nobody has insulted you. Are you sure you have your anger under control? You aren't acting like someone with excellent anger management skills.

Hesitant to address you given how quickly you are to assume infidelity. If you were involved in a situation where you were cheated on, I'm sorry. That being said we had reached an impasse. There was no single event that caused her to ask me to leave. My wife has tremendous difficulty expressing negative emotions. She retains it internally. It's not a straight ahead answer. The direct answer is we were simply fighting all the time and not making any progress. I probably did a number of things to piss her off (i.e. choose work over her; blame her for little things, etc.) Like I said, I had tremendous difficulty communicating with her, and vice-versa. Her style was to hold inside every little thing I did that bothered her, and then express her misgivings through passive-aggressive interaction; I would respond to the passive-aggressive jabs with aggression and reaction. This cycle continued to wear us both down to the point where she needed to hit the "time-out" button. We have small kids, and she did not want the kids to be constantly exposed to our arguing. There was probably one fight too many where she finally said "enough is enough" and asked for the separation. It's interesting how "cut and paste" carbon copy your response is to every other marriage discussion forum. You jump straight to "affair" without asking questions. If I really had legitimate evidence to suspect that my wife was having an affair, I wouldn't bear my heart and soul, and all of my failings on a public forum.

Anyway, this forum is like most forums- a pirrahna pool wherby veteran posters entertain themselves by triggering new posters.

Promuse,

Have you read any of the material on this site about lovebusters? Do you know about selfish demands, disrespectful judgments and angry outbursts? When is the last time you had an angry outburst?

What is the reason your wife asked for a separation?

AM

Not feeling the slightest bit angry. Just feeling regretful that I started this discussion and that I posted here. Not sure where you are seeing that I said I was insulted.

You would not be so quick to trigger if you truly did have your anger under control ... I think you still have some learning to do.

This reads more like an angry attack than regret at having started a thread on this forum.

AM

please explain to me where I attacked someone?

You are being very aggressive and judgemental toward people who are trying to help you.

You want angry, aggressive, and judgmental? Here you go:

Like I said, this forum is just like every other forum. To allow a newcomer? lol. I don't really want to be part of your community. Good bye.