First Couples Therapy

So while you are doing pointed questions, what do you think? Do you think you are too different to be compatible without each of you totally changing who you are? (Your viewpoint on this is just as important as hers is.)

If you have been married for 15 months and sexless for 8 that would barely even qualify as a divorce - more like an annulment of something that never was. 

An update as to everything that's happened, now that I have a bit more time.

Last weekend, I was in New York City with several old friends from high school for the wedding of one of our close friends. I had a blast the whole weekend- had a beautiful view from my room out over the East River and Brooklyn, and my friends and I went out both nights and got into some well overdue shenanigans (that'll be retold in another story and another place). However, the whole time I was there, I really didn't miss my wife, even a little bit. The closest I got to that was during the wedding ceremony, when the officiant talked about marriage being a choice and a commitment that you have to make to each other, each and every day all over again. It made me realize just how long it's been since I felt like she's chosen me, and even how much I've started maybe not choosing her either. Instead of coming along to the wedding, she'd taken the dogs and gone to her mom's house for the weekend, and was going to be staying over another day after I got back home.

That part, I was especially happy about. I was literally dreading her coming home after the weekend.

In my individual therapy session Monday afternoon, my counselor was able to drag out of me that most of what I was feeling when I was in New York was, "wow, I'm really glad my wife isn't here. She'd be miserable, and would make me feel miserable as well as a result." That was when the pointed questions about whether or not we're still compatible came up; we haven't had a chance to talk yet, but we'll see what happens when she gets home tonight.

After she got home, she was angry that I wasn't more excited to see her, that I had obviously not missed her as much as she wanted me to. I pointed out to her, again, that she'd pretty much conditioned me not to be overly excited when she came home (otherwise, I was being "weird), so I'd stopped. And of course, it wasn't something that I'd just stopped overnight. I asked her if she wanted to talk about anything else, a couple of times, and she declined, so I dropped it, and we slept in separate rooms again, as has become the usual the last couple of months.

The couples session later in the week was definitely contentious, again. When the counselor asked how things were going, the wife straight up didn't answer, and I said, "not so great," explained that once again she wasn't speaking to me, then looked at her to explain why. Once again, the wife said that she didn't feel like she had any "power" in the current relationship, that she couldn't say what she was feeling, that she felt like she had to go along with whatever I wanted, and that she felt like we were just going through the motions with the counseling. Once again, it took the therapist explaining that we were in the beginning stages of the process to figure out where we were, and see what action could be taken, and if it would make any difference, and that we'd all committed to the process for the next three months. Once again, she asked us to confirm that we were committed to the process as laid out. Like before, I responded that I definitely was, and once again the wife responded with a half-nod.

The counselor asked us to tell the rest of the story of our relationship following our wedding, and I began relating how the distance had grown over the last year, the isolation had become more noticeable. When I got to the part about my wife asking me if I wanted to set a deadline and perhaps look at an annulment if things didn't get better, her head finally popped up.

"I don't remember that conversation."

"Seriously? Because it really scared me, and I would think you'd remember something that big."

I had my journal with me, and was about to start digging into the pages to find exactly when that had happened, when she conceded and suggested that even though she didn't remember it, that it could have happened, and that if it had, that it was because at the time she probably thought it was what I wanted. I dropped it for the time being.

We continued with the rest of the year and the beginning of this year, the other disappointments I'd felt, and how the anniversary weekend trip had been what really did it in for me. At this point, my wife interrupted.

"I didn't think the anniversary weekend was that bad."

"What part did you not think was that bad? You were in tears and apologizing as we were in the National Park, and for most of the trip home!"

"But we had such a good first day, and it was only the one day that we didn't go out-"

"it was two. The first day, I ran and got you food from this place, and the second day, you asked me to get you food from this place."

She paused after that.

"But you said it was ok. And you do such a good job of making everything seem to be ok with you, and hiding any real emotion..."

"You were apologizing to me the whole time! Obviously you knew it was something that was going to bother me!"

At that point, the counselor stepped in and got us back on track with the reassurances that, "every couple goes through a rough spell where they need to figure out things. Granted it's usually at about 5 to 7 years in, but it might be best to get this out now, especially if you two were to stay together, and there were kids later..."

Once again, the wife refused to talk to me after we left the session, instead immediately getting in her car and heading out without saying a word to me.

A few hours later, not long before I left work, the wife texted me.

"Do you feel good leaving our sessions?"

"Not particularly. But I feel like we're at least saying a lot of the things we haven't otherwise said."

"Well I feel like each session is like a safe place for you to share all this stuff you've been keeping inside, so good for you, shitty for me."

I pointed out that she was doing precisely the same thing, especially with her not talking to me the last several weeks, and once again she told me didn't feel like she had the option to talk. Knowing we were in for a long fight, I told her I'd be home in about half an hour, and she wanted to continue when we were both home, I was open to that. She agreed.

Highlights from the fight when we both got home: (all her words)

"it would've been easier if you'd just cheated on me, instead of having to deal with all this."
"we process things differently- I work things out on my own, and that's what I've been doing. I don't need to go see a therapist like you do."
"the friends that I've told, that YOU insisted I talk to about this, all think you're terribly confused and that you have a lot to prove now. If they don't hate you."

At one point, I asked her if she could honestly tell me what she's getting out of our marriage, because I'd really like to know. She told me she couldn't answer that question right now.


And then the real mind-fuckers, that really just served to piss me off more than anything else:

"you know, I never really thought about having kids until the possibility came up of me not having them. You still have time to go out and find somebody else. I don't." This from the woman who told me she was always planning on adopting, and that the physical process of being pregnant scared the shit out of her.

And the piece de resistance:

"I miss you. I miss the sex. I miss making out, and flirting. I still think about you when I masturbate."

When I called her out on that, took her to task for the constant shooting me down for the last year, the refusals, the comment about keeping me at arm's length, she just looked at me, and replied,
"how are we so bad at this?"

"No, that's all on you. Not me this time."

She was quiet after that. She left the next day for a bachelorette party the next state over, and she's been gone all weekend. I honestly haven't missed her at all, we've barely spoken while she's been gone, and now that she's on the way home, I'm dreading her return. Again. And now looking forward to an overnight trip I have for work this week.

We're still committed to the 3 month process, but at this point, I've honestly started wondering how much of it is going to be autopsy down the road.

DryCreek, we're out of the window of annulment- she told me she'd already looked it up in the same breath as asking if I'd started looking at apartments (I hadn't at that point and told her so).

I suspect it's going to be a difficult, eye opening three months for you. Think of the time of year. There's Halloween, Thanksgiving, Christmas, New Years, and birthdays. Lots of " couples " activities. The more and more you are aware of her manipulative, denning, avoiding, reversing tactics, you are libel to do 2things. One, call her out on it, and start enforcing boundaries. Or two you will both avoid each other more and more, so there are little conflicts to resolve. Both end things.

PS - I would still verify that "window of annulment" thing - I doubt she included the SM status of your deal when she asked her questions. I would recommend you verify all facts & options personally and not take her word for any of the information you will base any decisions on.

Narcissist, controllers, do not take blame for anything. They thrive on denial, and reversal, so it is somehow your fault.

i once used  a few of my STBX's own lines on her. That lead to heightened anger and a denial with the reversal,( change of subject, with accusations).

Does anyone else find this line illuminating:

"Once again, the wife said that she didn't feel like she had any "power" in the current relationship, ..."