Hi,

I have suggested to my seperated wife that we try the MB weekend retreat. If you remember, she says she doesn't love me anymore, can't imagine loving me again, and doesn't know if she wants to be in any type of relationship with anyone besides our 2 1/2 year old daughter whom we share cutody of.

I spoke briefly to Steve Harvey on the phone and I think he said to just get her there - no matter how negative her attitude was. I hope I didn't misinterpret that, but I felt rushed on the phone. Could this possibly wor if she has no desire to try, or if she has no belief in this system???

Anyway, I'm not sure she will do it anyway, but I wanted to know what you guys thought of this plan - because I am out of ideas and I know she is just about ready to file after 2 months away.

My proposal to her would be that if she agreed to go to the retreat and go through the followup that I would leave her alone and not talk about anything between now and then - January 30-31 - (she feels constantly pressured by me even though I'm doing the best I can). If after going through the seminar and followup she still didn't see any hope, then I would agree with her that it was over.

I have no idea how many fatal flaws there are in this plan, but I guess my primary objective is to get her to the seminar. If the plan works as well as advertised, maybe this would be enough to get her to want to try again. If not, I'm out of ideas and probably hope.

One thing I know, I can't go on like this in this limbo much longer. I'm exhausted and very hurt, and angry, and frustrated, and just confused. At the same time, I know that I need to do everything in my power to try to save our marriage - and that includes doing everything to get her to want to try to save it too. If I did everything I could, it will be easier to accept later - I hope.

One other feeling I have is that despite all the issues that will need to be worked through, I truly believe that there is something worth saving and that she left way too soon. Unfortunately, she now seems to be in that place where she's afraid to try because she's afraid to get back into the same relationship we had and get hurt again, and plus it's got to be so much easier to just run and hide.

I hope I get some insight from this great community.

Thanks a lot!

I have not been to a seminar, but I desperately wanted to go two years ago, only 6 weeks after separating, but X refused.

I think its a great idea. The way I viewed it, it's intensive marriage counseling. Rather than going once a week over a 16 week period, you get the same amount of counseling in a condensed period, and followup to help you understand it all. And, its much cheaper than ongoing counseling.

Ask your wife to try it. If you cannot save the M, at least you will both learn to communicate better for the sake of your daughter. It may help you both understand what happened in your marriage, and hopefully it will help you recover, and have a better marriage than you imagined.

Please try it. Divorce sucks for all involved. Give it a try.

If she is willing to go, that would be great. But if she goes with a closed mind, it may not payoff. Then you come back with her not agreeing with MB and you still feel like the 2 of you didn't try hard enough. That is what MC did for me. W decided on D and I don't think we tried enough.

It also sounds like she may see you asking as more pressure. I would hold off on your proposal and try to bring up the subject to see how she would react to it. If you tell her that if she goes, you'll leave her alone, she may agree now to get you to leave her alone and still has plenty of time to back out on you.

Thanks everyone for your advice. I guess that the one question that really remains is is there any use going to the seminar if she has a completely closed mind? Can it possibly work? How can she open her mind in 1+ days enough to allow her to continue with the follow-up?

I will do what I can to back off. I keep trying, but whenever I'm doing a little better, I end up undoing it all with one phone call where I pour it all out to her again.

I wish she had a good friend to talk with who could impress upon her the upside of at least trying, rather than those her feed her negativity.

</font><blockquote><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:</font><hr /><font size="2" face="Verdana, Arial"> How can she open her mind in 1+ days enough to allow her to continue with the follow-up?
</font><hr /></blockquote><font size="2" face="Verdana, Arial">If she is able to see how much you care and also sees that you may have a chance together, I would consider it worth while. You can't expect the 1+ day to change her mind, but maybe it will open it a little.

I don't know anything about the MB weekend, but from our Retrouvaille weekend, it can only help. We got to that first evening of Retrouvaille with WS still in the A and me not having any hope for our M. 24 hours later I was still very angry, but something happened later that night. We started talking and that may have been the beginning of the end of the A. If you can get her to the weekend, you may be able to connect again. Good luck!

WishIWereHome (can I just call you WIWH for short? <img border="0" title="" alt="[Smile]" src="images/icons/smile.gif" /> ,

Thanks again for the reply. I don't think that she questions how much I care, how much I love her, or how much I want our family back together - though I've been wrong about knowing what she's thinking in the past! But from talking to her, I get the feeling that she doesn't think I have her best interests in mind. As I told her in a recent email, it does me no good to trick her into coming back because neither one of us wants to be in an unhappy relationship. I only want it if it is a healthy relationship. Just not sure she believes me. Somehow, despite how everything I've done during our marriage has been with her best interests in mind ( and of course mine and my daughter's too), she now only focuses on the negatives. I'm sure this is a defense mechanism, but being right does me no good. I just wish there were magic words to break through her wall and get her to let her guard down long enough to see how much I love her and how much is at stake.

Paul
Call me what you want. If I don't like it I won't Reply <img border="0" title="" alt="[Big Grin]" src="images/icons/grin.gif" />

I know exactly what you mean. I could copy your last post word for word as my own. I just said the things to her in person rather than e-mail.
Have you read up on LB's? I haven't read the book yet but plan to
Try not to give her any negatives to think about and avoid discussing past problems that bring out the negatives.