I agree. The paper means little to nothing to me. She is my wife and I took the vow to love her through better or worse.
She was right to ask me to leave because she feared me. I did a very poor job of making her feel safe with me. No excuses. I failed her as a husband and can’t do anything to change the past.
The only time we spend together is when we swap kids. We talk on the phone occasionaly and it seems that the only time I can get her to open up and talk is after the discussion gets heated and the info that she finally shares is worthless in helping us draw closer together.
From what I can gather communication is the main problem. She says what she says and I hear what I think she is saying. I say what I say and she hears what she thinks I am saying. The problem is that whatever each of us was trying to say isn’t what each heard. That is why I wanted to go to Retro. From what I can gather that is precisely what they help with.
I guess it all comes down to trust. She doesn’t trust me and won’t allow herself to get hurt again. 2 weeks isn’t enough time to rebuild that trust. I don’t know what could be done to rebuild that trust. She doesn’t want to go to church with me or anything else that would allow us to be together close enough for her to feel comfortable with me.
Men, don’t take your wives for granted. Cherish them. You don’t know how good you have it until you don’t anymore. I lost my best friend. I lost the woman that I love. I lost the mother of my children. Don’t make the same mistakes that I did. Men love your wifes like Christ loves His Church. Once they are gone it is VERY unlikely you will get them back.
David, I don’t know if it will be to late, but I will mention it anyway. I learned of it here when I wrote of my marriage. Have you heard of Dr. Emerson’s Crazy Cycle. Imagine a circle that moves in one direction to the right with these words around it: She Reacts Without Respect He Reacts Without Love and it goes on as He Reacts Without Love She Reacts Without Respects. Check it out at
www.loveandrespect.com for the model of it if you don’t under me. They have some video clips to watch for men and some for women and some for the married couple. My dh and I received the audiobook CD of his book *Love and Respect *and are learning so much from it. (You can buy it from this website just click on the “estore.”) We don’t have the time to read much, so we listen to the CD as we drive in the car. Dr. Emerson even has a section when he talks to the men alone and to the women alone, but the other sex is welcome to listen. He is very wise in what he has to say. It has helped us so much and has helped us to learn when we are in this Crazy Cycle in our marriage and how to get off of it before we keep arguing. He teaches you how to do that and to get on a healther cycle that I think he called the reguvinating cycle. Basically, it comes down to a basic concept that women are made by God to be loved and crave that love from their husband and we don’t need to be taught to do this to our husband for we are made to do this, but we do need help in learning to respect our husband which is what men crave according to Dr. Emerson and what he found in the Bible. For example, he gave an example of a man losing a job as a major deal and stressor for a man so much so that it was equivalent to what a woman feels in a miscarriage. He was not saying that a job was as important as a loss of a baby, but was saying that the man’s feelings of a loss of a job was so important to who he is as a person that it was like losing a baby in a woman. I can’t explain as well as he can. You have to read his book or listen to his audiobook. Please, don’t get angry at me and say that the life of a baby is more important for I know that and he knows that, he was talking about the way a man feels after he loses a job and the importance of it to his character as a man. It was quite interesting.
Please, this could really help your marriage. If your wife would be willing to listen to it or read the book, it could help your marriage. Who knows how long you have been in the crazy cycle. You were probably neglecting her and she felt unloved and you probably felt that she did not respect you. I don’t know, but if that is how you felt, then you two were in the crazy cycle and you have hope, but it all depends if she wants to hold off on the divorce.
As Mark mentioned. What is the hurry for it? But as BMB said too, we don’t know either what you have done to hurt your wife so badly. If she can forgive you then this book can help you recover. It is not Catholic, but it is Christian based and uses the Bible. I have not found anything in it anti-Catholic so far. I am on disc 4 now which is for women now. I am learning so much about men that I did not know. I am learning news ways to treat my husband. All this time, I though he is the that needs to change, but I too need to change. Dr. Emerson says the power to improve marriages lies more in the wife’s power than they think.
Check it out. I will pray for your marriage. Miracles still happens!!
