Dear Dan:

I hope that your heartache doesn’t last long and that you will feel better real soon. Your story brings the lyrics of a song to my mind: “I loved and I lost, It happens to the best”, and reads like you are one of the best that this has happened to. If it helped you to post here once, you are welcome to post a 2nd time and a 3rd…  and share more about anything you’d like to share about.

anita

Dear Dan:

White Blank Page:

Can you lie next to her
And give her your heart, your heart
As well as your body

And can you lie next to her
And confess your love, your love
As well as your folly

And can you kneel before the King
And say I’m clean, I’m clean

But tell me now, where was my fault
In loving you with my whole heart
Oh tell me now, where was my fault
In loving you with my whole heart

A white blank page and a swelling rage, rage
You did not think when you sent me to the brink, to the brink
You desired my attention but denied my affections, my affections

So tell me now, where was my fault
In loving you with my whole heart
Oh tell me now, where was my fault
In loving you with my whole heart

Heart, Heart, Heart, Heart

Lead me to the truth and I will follow you with my whole life
O lead me to the truth and I will follow you with my whole life

Heart, Heart, Heart, Heart

–I be away from the computer for hours but when I am back, I would like to respond to this song as it relates to your situation.

anita

Dear Dan,

You are very welcome. You say you didn’t show any frustration, however she probably sensed it. You say:

When her mom started living with us I was unhappy but I put up with it and didn’t really voice my feelings and she probably sensed that as well.

I am sure she sensed that you were displeased with the situation, because people who are in the care-taker role are very attuned to other people’s needs… so she felt it and probably felt guilty that she wasn’t giving you enough…

Actually she said one time that she thought I was jealous of her son. This is farthest from the truth but I guess she was being pulled in all different directions.

Perhaps you resented that e.g. her son gets to sleep in her bed, while you ended up on the couch? And she interpreted your resentment as jealousy? If I may ask – what were the sleeping arrangements before covid, when her children were staying one week at a time at your place? Did her son sleep in her bed then too, while you slept separately? Or it only started happening during covid?

Sleeping with her 10-year old son on a regular basis, and separately from you – her husband – does tell a lot about her. I think it tells about her guilt and, as you discussed with Helcat, about her inability to set boundaries with her children.  She felt guilty for setting those boundaries, and she also probably felt guilty for not giving you what you expected from her. And so she found the solution in separation, which is very unfortunate for both of you. But you cannot do much about it, apart from working on your side of the problem.

And I’ve learned a lot about myself since the separation. I’ve learned that I have attachment trauma stemming from things in the past. I’ve learned that I’m an anxious pre occupied style of attachment. I’ve learned those things and understand now what could have been different.

It’s good that you are aware of your anxious attachment style. People with anxious attachment style (this was my attachment style too!) are attracted to motherly types i.e. care-takers, so it’s probably a part of the reason why you were so attracted to your wife. She was probably a dream-come-true for you, or rather, for the needy child in you. Because the child wants to feel safe and protected, it wants to feel cared for and nurtured, it wants to feel No1 to his care-taker…

I remember my needy child wanted to feel No1 for my then-boyfriend (now husband), and I was hurt if he had to attend to other people and if I wasn’t his center of attention at all times. I am not saying you are the same, but this is typical for anxious attachment.

If you want to grow out of this neediness, you would need to work on becoming the care-taker for your own inner child. Strengthening the adult part in you, who can become the care-taker for your wounded inner child. It’s called self-parenting or re-parenting. Best if you could do it in therapy, if that is available to you.

I would be glad to talk to you more about anxious attachment and how to heal it, or anything else you might be interested in.

Dear Dan,

You are very welcome.

So after the renovation, you did have 3 bedrooms, if I understood well? In one bedroom slept you and your wife, in another her daughter, and in the third one her son, right? (during the renovation, her son slept in the same room with the two of you, but in his own bed).

So after the third bedroom had been renovated, there was a time when her son slept separately, in his own room? Was he happy with you while you were all sleeping in the same room, but then started pulling away when he needed to move to his own room? It could be that this triggered his feeling of abandonment, and he started to complain to his mother? And it culminated by your wife proclaiming that she can’t sleep due to your snoring, and basically sent you away to another room? And this enabled her son to return to sleep with her…

Of course, it’s also possible that she really couldn’t stand your snoring any more, but was too polite to mention it earlier, not to hurt your feelings. And then in September 2021, after almost two years of being married to you and living with you, she finally had enough and told you. But it also could be that she wouldn’t have done it if her son didn’t complain about the new sleeping arrangement… Can you shed some light on that? Do you think that her son started pulling away from you when he was sent to sleep in his own room?

You said:

Also, as stated I was a bit needy and wasn’t really getting any of my needs met.

When did you start feeling first that she wasn’t meeting your needs? And what where those needs exactly, i.e. in what way did her behavior towards you change?

Dear Dan:

I am sorry for your heartache and I hope that you will feel better soon. It may take feeling worse before feeling better because learning important lessons in life is often painful. But then, when you learn important lessons, life gets better.

“I was coming off of a bad 12 year relationship one in which lasted about 10 years too long. Our separation wasn’t bad, our relationship wasn’t bad but things in life happened”-

– did you notice that you wrote in two consecutive sentences that the relationship (at least 10 years of it) was bad and that it wasn’t bad? I know people who see and yet they do not see the reality of their relationships, putting aside painful information so to have a picture as rosy as possible. It is a way to lower stress, to keep going with less stress.

“Christmas hit and something didn’t feel right but I was kept in the dark. .. and I felt the distance growing further and further“- you were kept in the dark, meaning there were no conversations, or no clarifying, honest communication between you and your wife about what was going on, and without such communication the distance between the two of you grew.

“Then her mom started living with us I was unhappy but I put up with it and didn’t really voice my feelings and she probably sensed that as well. I don’t know“- there were no conversations between you and your wife about her mother moving in and living with the two of you. Your wife didn’t ask you beforehand how you’d feel about it (or she asked and you said it’d be alight?), and/ or you didn’t volunteer information to her in regard to her mother moving in or living with you. You are guessing that she probably sensed how you felt but you don’t know because…  you didn’t tell her?

“I think she just wanted to be a single mom again and not have the responsibility of being a wife as well. I don’t know. All this has left me very confused“- again, you don’t know because there were no conversations, at least not honest and clarifying conversation about what she wanted and what her motivation was for the separation. As a result, you are very confused.

“She.. doesn’t want to go see the concert we bought tickets for. Maybe it’s because she doesn’t want to open up, maybe it’s because she finds it too hard to see me. I don’t know“- again, no conversations=> you are guessing because you don’t know.

About your prior relationship, you wrote: “Our separation wasn’t bad“.  About your separation from your current wife, you wrote: “We hold no ill will or bad feelings towards each other“- no conversations, no honest communication=> no bad separation, no bad feelings?

About your prior relationship, you wrote: “Our relationship wasn’t bad but things in life happened that made it very difficult for her to be the wife she says I deserve“. About your most recent relationship, you wrote: “she said she wanted a separation… She said that… she couldn’t be there for me the way that she thinks she should“- I am getting the picture (and please correct me if I am wrong, Dan) that in relationships with the two women you mentioned, you are eager to please, not voicing negative feelings, being a yes-man perhaps… so overall, in relationships, you take on the “good guy” role and the woman feels like the “bad guy”, and as a result they feel guilty (?)

“I’ve learned that I have attachment trauma.. I’ve learned that I’m an anxious pre occupied style of attachment“- too anxious to voice your feelings, to ask questions?

“She said one time that she thought I was jealous of her son. This is farthest from the truth…  Did I resent that her son was sleeping in her bed while I was on the couch?  Yes I can honestly say part of me did. Maybe that’s me being selfish, I don’t know”- it is not selfish to feel what you feel, but judging yourself negatively for how you feel, you deny what you truly feel from yourself?

White Blank Page, the song: “Can you lie next to her- And give her your heart, your heart– As well as your body…. And confess your love, your love As well as your folly“- when one feels foolish (folly), it takes courage to give another person your mind: your true thoughts and feelings.. for fear of being thought of as foolish or faulty, is it?

“But tell me now, where was my fault- In loving you with my whole heart“- no fault in loving her with your true heart. It’s just that there has to be a good measure of honest, open communication between two people in order to have a good, healthy relationship.

“A white blank page and a swelling rage, rage- You did not think when you sent me to the brink, to the brink. You desired my attention but denied my affections, my affections“-  I know how troubling feeling anger can be, it can feel threatening. Does it feel this way to you?

“Heart, Heart, Heart, Heart- Lead me to the truth and I will follow you with my whole life- O lead me to the truth and I will follow you with my whole life“-

– Elsewhere, about the truth: “Ye shall know the truth and the truth shall make you free“- it is a fascinating journey to face and get to know the truth. It is painful at times, but the state of mental and emotional freedom is worth it!

anita