My wife and I have been married for four years. I am currently in the Navy, for a couple more months. Since I returned from my last deployment, our communication seems to have all but stopped. Some new issues were generated while I was gone. My wife started working as a bartender a couple of months before I got home. She e-mailed me and asked me if it was alright, because she needed a break from the kids from time to time. She only works 3 nights a week. I immediately agreed, because I knew she was doing a lot by raising our children by herself for six months. Maybe I thought internally that she would quit once I got home and was able to take the kids off her hands when I could. I don't know. Obviously, she did not quit and is still working there, 8 months after I returned. My biggest problem with this situation is that I become very jealous. I know she is not doing anything wrong, and I trust her completely. The problem is I don't trust anyone else. My jealousy has greatly reduced over the years, but it is still there. Something happened to me long before I even met my wife. I was engaged about 3 years before we met. That woman decided to get pregnant 2 weeks before our wedding....while I was 1500 miles away. Before that happened I never had a jealous thought in my mind ever. I had numerous long distance relationships, being in the Navy. But since then, the jealousy has always been there. I destroyed the first relationship I was in after that just due to a basic lack of trust. I accused that girl of everything, if I wasn't with her. There are other issues present that have contributed to our present difficulties, but this is the one that bothers me the most. I know which one bothers my wife the most, and honestly it isn't this one. But that can be the topic of another post. Anyway, to make a longer story shorter, my wife and I are living separately right now. Her family lives here in town, so she is staying with her dad. I still see her, and we are meeting with a marriage counsellor through the Navy. I am honestly trying to make amends for the way I have treated her, not only over the last 8 months, but since we have been married. After reading Dr. Harley's Basic Concepts, I recognize a lot of behaviors and similarities. Especially the states of marriage. But there was no mention of the co-existence of one spouse being in the Intimacy stage, and giving, giving, giving, and the other in the Withdrawl stage, staying with her father and trying to decide if she is still in love with me. Neither one of us has given up on the marriage, but I am scared and lonely as hell right now. I don't know if I am looking for advice here or just another place to talk with people. Thanks for reading my rambling if you made it this far.
