Hiya - never posted anything like this before but here it goes:
I am 35 years old and my wife has asked be to give her space while she finds out who she - I am due to leave home tomorrow for two weeks is and it hurts. Home includes a seven year old girl who's birthday is the following Saturday - which I have been told that I can come back for - it will obviously be difficult.
She tells me I don't listen to her however I have found it very hard to do so for lots of reasons including the fact that she has a mild mental illness/depression/anger. We have tried various counseling before for other subjects but not found it to be helpful. She had a problematic childhood and the last person only wanted to talk about that which caused her to loose interest because she has done that to death previously.
Up until a couple of days ago there was a lot of focus on having more children from her - she would not let go and in the end I wrote a list of my concerns so she could understand why I didn't feel more children was an option and said to her that if she could help me with the list then I might be able to change my mind.
That boiled over and forced me to start reading posts like the ones here to try and understand. It turns out the real issue is that she has lost herself and that she resents me for pushing and needing too much. This is hard for me because of lots of things in our nine year history, I work long hours and deep down I feel she is unmotivated, gives up on something's easily and does not contribute enough because of it. She is trying which is nice and recently she realized that her anger was very negatively effecting everything and tries to catch herself which was a pleasant relief.
I feel hurt, alone and a small bit angry/resentful - she is my best and only real friend and she can't try to fix this with me. In fairness she has said most of the things previously but I feel that she wants them handed to her on a plate or at the very least expects me to enable/arrange it - given our past I can now see why she thinks like that but it has been tough to realize this.
We both wrote letters after we realized what the root (or close to root) issue was. Hers said, and I am paraphrasing as it is hand written she loved me but needed to motivate herself and needed me gone to do that. I will attach mine below.
As I have said I have found this very difficult to understand and we both admit mistakes but I have had to push or need to push her to understand and she resents me further for that. Last night she went into a bit of a panic and repeated over and over two weeks will not be enough because I am not trying to change straight away.
Help, Advice or Comments very welcome!
------------------- letter to wife ----------------------
What I wanted to say is that I need to understand that you are working towards getting us back together as a family via sorting yourself out while I am away which will be two weeks. You have also hinted that you want me to change during this time and I have some ideas but when you are ready - perhaps in a few days we can discuss this again.
You keep on saying that I want you to be dependent on me and you mentioned the word slave yesterday. This is absolutely not the case although it obviously feels like it. I want you to be the best you can be within our family. I thought you could do things for yourself, for example booking driving lessons - which I am sure you have money for in the bank or at the very least you could have booked it and asked me for additional money if you did not have enough - I understand now that you have not felt you could do those things because of my reactions. You have said that you understand that these things become responsibilities for me on top of other things which is why I more often than not do not have the energy to do them for you. It is obvious we need to make time to discuss these things on a regular basis perhaps weekly and not neglect them as we have in the past. I think this is want you want as well and you can help by organizing and laying it out for me when we discuss these things.
In my mind because I need to work long hours to keep us all in the lifestyle we have I thought it was reasonable to expect, or that you would want to, contribute to our family by doing things like keeping the house tidy, cooking dinner and looking after KIDS NAME. I can understand that at the moment you are not doing them for yourself - because they are not getting done I comment and then I become the focus of the chore which is building resentment against me.
There have been many different situations in our time together which have contributed these feelings and miscommunication starting right from the word go. We have both sacrificed a lot while becoming a family but I love my family and wouldn't want to be without you.
One of the things that contributes to this situation is that by my nature I normally speak my mind as I think it - this does not help when I say the wrong thing when I mean something else which then provokes you and recently you have got more angry which has in turn closed me up more, you say I do not listen to you and I think the same is true in reverse. BTW - previously when you said I did not listen I thought you meant it literally and has been a source of confusion and frustration for me as well.
While I am gone you are going to have many things to keep yourself busy with and KIDS NAME and your friends to keep you company - I am not like you in this respect in that I have not developed other relationships because of the additional demands both time and socially that this places on me and I find it easier to neglect which I guess makes me a little bit of a loner - but at the same time I have you and KIDS NAME to keep me company which gives me energy.
I need to understand the process because I need to understand that you want us to be a family together and at the moment it feels as though you suspect that there is not going to be that future and amongst other things you want to see what life would be like without me in it. I hear what you are saying about needing to do things for yourself and I agree that is important - but I suspect there is more as well which is deeply troubling to me.
