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My wife and I are recently separated. It has been less than four months. She left me because of an emotional affair I had with a long time friend of mine. We have been trying to work things out between the two of us but it has not been easy.
We have one child together, and infant, of whom we have both expressed our desires to do things right by, and I believe that we both still love each other very much. However I think we are having trouble finding common ground between the two of us on what things should be done, how things should be done, and when things should be done.
During the first part of the separation communication was very low between the two of us. She expressed alot of her needs during that time, but I dropped the ball because I felt equally as hurt because did not at first understand why she had left me. She had accused me of having an affair which made me angry at the time because there had been no sex and no romance and I did not understand how much it had hurt her to not put her first as my wife. I attributed her actions to be the results of her hormones from pregnancy, she was off of her antidepressantss, she was off of her anxiety medication, and off of her migraine medication, as well as everything else that could present complications in utero. At the time I also attributed it to the stress she had from the loss of one of her cats getting hit by a car. As we spoke more I learned more about what she was feeling, I learned about lies that the OW had told to the both of us, and I learned more about how I had made her feel.
We are currently living about 3 1/2 hours apart. I have returned to work and meanwhile she is caring for our child and she is trying to go back to school. Last week was my first week back to work and then I went to stay with her over the weekend. I had a good time with her plus I really missed our baby, however since coming back for a second week of work we have furthered contention between us. She was upset at me because she expected me to take alot of immediate actions to things when I returned home. Today I have my first in-person meeting with my counselor, something she was hoping I would have arranged for last week. I think one of the problems I am having right now is that I do not know how to interpret her signals very well. Often times feel like I get mixed signals from her, and often I feel that if I ask she is getting upset with me for not already just knowing. For example I left her Sunday night and made it home by about 1:30am, took care of the house and then got about 3 hours of sleep before going to work for 13 hours on Monday. I turned my cell phone back on after work and called her and responded to her texts but got no response back. I fell asleep soon after getting home and woke up an hour later to her calling me and we got into an argument over the phone. I decided to drive up to her as I was off work the next day (today) so that we wouldn't be fighting over the phone. About 45 minutes down the highway she calls me back, I pull off the road to talk to her and after another 45 minutes on the phone she tells me to turn around and go home. I turn around and go home, and she then tells me that heading back home was the wrong thing to do, that I abandoned my "heroic" deed too easily.
I consider myself very easy going and very laid back. I have had alot of friends over the years where she has not. She suffers from anxiety attacks, does not have many close friends, but she says that she is co-dependent. I feel stretched by her back and forths. She says she wants me and needs me to do certain things, but then says she needs to live alone and that when I do things for her that it doesn't matter that I've done them because I've done them too late. I am new to forums of any nature, and I don't know if I have a specific question, I think I am just in need of some advice. I want to move forward but she says she is done with 50/50 and wants me to do 100% of the effort. How do I suppress my own hurt so that I can 100% for her? How do I know what heroics I should be doing? I'm afraid that what we are going through will take alot more time to heal. I imagine even if one of us won the lottery our problems wouldn't just go away. However I feel like she wants everything yesterday. When I do put myself out there or reach deeper and deeper into myself to share my feelings I keep feeling like she's putting me down; that I cannot deserve to feel a certain way or act a certain way because of how badly I hurt her and how she is still suffering. I have always been social however I feel like I am becoming more and more codependent on the inside for her. I'm afraid to put myself out there because I'm afraid that no mater what I choose she seems to be trying to break herself of her codependency for me and she will still hate me in the end and I would have done all for nothing.
We have one child together, and infant, of whom we have both expressed our desires to do things right by, and I believe that we both still love each other very much. However I think we are having trouble finding common ground between the two of us on what things should be done, how things should be done, and when things should be done.
During the first part of the separation communication was very low between the two of us. She expressed alot of her needs during that time, but I dropped the ball because I felt equally as hurt because did not at first understand why she had left me. She had accused me of having an affair which made me angry at the time because there had been no sex and no romance and I did not understand how much it had hurt her to not put her first as my wife. I attributed her actions to be the results of her hormones from pregnancy, she was off of her antidepressantss, she was off of her anxiety medication, and off of her migraine medication, as well as everything else that could present complications in utero. At the time I also attributed it to the stress she had from the loss of one of her cats getting hit by a car. As we spoke more I learned more about what she was feeling, I learned about lies that the OW had told to the both of us, and I learned more about how I had made her feel.
We are currently living about 3 1/2 hours apart. I have returned to work and meanwhile she is caring for our child and she is trying to go back to school. Last week was my first week back to work and then I went to stay with her over the weekend. I had a good time with her plus I really missed our baby, however since coming back for a second week of work we have furthered contention between us. She was upset at me because she expected me to take alot of immediate actions to things when I returned home. Today I have my first in-person meeting with my counselor, something she was hoping I would have arranged for last week. I think one of the problems I am having right now is that I do not know how to interpret her signals very well. Often times feel like I get mixed signals from her, and often I feel that if I ask she is getting upset with me for not already just knowing. For example I left her Sunday night and made it home by about 1:30am, took care of the house and then got about 3 hours of sleep before going to work for 13 hours on Monday. I turned my cell phone back on after work and called her and responded to her texts but got no response back. I fell asleep soon after getting home and woke up an hour later to her calling me and we got into an argument over the phone. I decided to drive up to her as I was off work the next day (today) so that we wouldn't be fighting over the phone. About 45 minutes down the highway she calls me back, I pull off the road to talk to her and after another 45 minutes on the phone she tells me to turn around and go home. I turn around and go home, and she then tells me that heading back home was the wrong thing to do, that I abandoned my "heroic" deed too easily.
I consider myself very easy going and very laid back. I have had alot of friends over the years where she has not. She suffers from anxiety attacks, does not have many close friends, but she says that she is co-dependent. I feel stretched by her back and forths. She says she wants me and needs me to do certain things, but then says she needs to live alone and that when I do things for her that it doesn't matter that I've done them because I've done them too late. I am new to forums of any nature, and I don't know if I have a specific question, I think I am just in need of some advice. I want to move forward but she says she is done with 50/50 and wants me to do 100% of the effort. How do I suppress my own hurt so that I can 100% for her? How do I know what heroics I should be doing? I'm afraid that what we are going through will take alot more time to heal. I imagine even if one of us won the lottery our problems wouldn't just go away. However I feel like she wants everything yesterday. When I do put myself out there or reach deeper and deeper into myself to share my feelings I keep feeling like she's putting me down; that I cannot deserve to feel a certain way or act a certain way because of how badly I hurt her and how she is still suffering. I have always been social however I feel like I am becoming more and more codependent on the inside for her. I'm afraid to put myself out there because I'm afraid that no mater what I choose she seems to be trying to break herself of her codependency for me and she will still hate me in the end and I would have done all for nothing.
