It happened about two weeks ago and I really should have blogged at the time. I now only vaguely remember what caused the terrible fight we had that led her to leave and stay with her mother. But whatever it was it has left me alone in our apartment for two weeks.
My wife is by nature an intuitive caregiver. It's as though she reads my mind to know what I need, physically or psychologically. She took care of me hand and foot during the time I was sick from the hepatitis C treatment. I think she got burned out from all of that caregiving. Even a person who by nature is a caregiver can only do so much. She must have pushed herself to the limit of what she could stand.
She fell down with pneumonia about two weeks ago and had to rely on me for help during her illness. I did the best I could but it didn't satisfy her. There were some times when I simply did not take her into account. For example, offering to make her dinner instead of her having her ask for it. This is an example of my limitations as a caregiver. I don't naturally know what a person needs or wants. I have to be asked.
She accused me of, "Not being there," when she needed me. I'm still not sure what that means. She said that she could not depend on me to take care of her. In retrospect, I think she wants from me the same level of caregiving that she provides. This simply isn't possible. I don't have those skills. I need to be taught them.
Her criticism became more harsh and finally, as I remember it, hateful. I lost my temper. I thew a kleenex box into the hallway in my rage. She left to go home to her mother's apartment but by phone we made up and she returned. But the day after the criticism began again as her condition worsened. The hateful incentive that came from her was too much from me.
I flew into a screaming rage. I yelled at her that I was doing the best I can. She yelled back that it wasn't good enough and that she could not depend on me to, "Be there." I still don't know what that means. I am there for her and ready to help her in any way possible. But it seems stuck in her mind that it is missing.
She has labelled this problem as a crisis in our relationship and that we need to go to couples therapy. So I dutifully set up appointments with five different therapists last week we met with each and decided who would work best for us. It was exhausting work going the same problems again and again in order to understand them ourselves and to observe the reactions of the therapist.
We finally settled on a man in his early fifties and have since met with him a second time. He was attentive and observed our emotional interplay. He engaged himself and helped us set boundaries. He also asked us to examine the feelings we had during our anger. He said that anger is usually an expression of fear and that we needed to get to the root cause of that fear in order to understand our anger. At least that's what I remember him saying. We will be seeing him twice a week until things settle down after which we will see him only once a week. Presumably we will reach a point where we no longer need to work with him at all.
During the process of selecting a couples therapist we also completed several online questionnaires from Personality Assessor . We learned a lot about Attachment Theory which attempts to quantify the nature of relationships and why some work and others do not. It also analyzes the traits a person possesses. I found it to be fascinating and have printed out all of my results. We have also taken a test provided by the Your Personality unique to that site. It's been a learning experience for me but I'm not so sure it has been for my wife.
My wife selected one of the therapists we interviewed as her own personal therapist. I am utterly glad to see her owning up to the fact that she needs a therapist and has found one with whom (so far) she can work. This is a big relief for me. For a long time I have wanted her to see a therapist. But being poor, she could only afford what the free Mission Mental Health Care facility would provide. When was assigned one she was a woman with whom she had no rapport whatsoever. So that was the end of that.
I think on top everything my wife is furious at me for trying to quit smoking (see my later post) during our relationship crisis. I cannot seem to explain to her that the stress caused by the two have utterly nothing to do with one another. On the one hand she congratulates me for the progress I have made and at times explodes with anger about it. This is confusing to me. I am not going to stop my quitting smoking project regardless because I know for a fact that it is not interfering with our relationship issues.
Meanwhile, I have been left alone in the apartment. I sometimes go over to her mother's apartment to visit or eat dinner. She comes over sometimes to pick something up or even just to visit. These visits are becoming more strained. I am withdrawn and unresponsive to her emotional needs. Living alone has done that to me. I've become more self-efficient emotionally and do not need the company of others. She senses this change in me. I think it makes her worried and angry at the same time.
Last night she visited and we sat at the dining room table talking. I tried to broach the suggestion made by our therapist about examining the root causes of our anger. This made her very agitated and defensive. I could tell she was getting angry at me and I tried to smooth things over. I think that made her even more angry. So what I wanted to start as an emotional dialog became a total communication breakdown.
I tell her that I love her. She doesn't respond. She says that she isn't sure if she loves me or not. I think this might be drama on her part. If she really didn't love me she would be moving out. But all of her stuff is still here but she comes over now and then to pick something up.
I have never been good at being alone. I was alone without and friends or family during the fall and winter of 2005. I was in a severe manic episode and had frequent psychotic breaks. It was later that I met Yaffa. But during that time of being alone I went crazy in the cold and darkness with nothing to do except participate in the Online Icarus Forum. I don't think that I ever recovered from the pain and loneliness I sufferred during that time. But I learned.
I think the experience turned me into an introvert when all of my life I have always been an extrovert. I tend to withdraw from emotional confrontations when I do not cave in to another's demands. I have become submissive. This tendency to withhold my feelings and affection for my wife has begun to show itself (why now I don't know) and it upsets her greatly. I tend to intellectualize whereas my wife is an emoter. It's not really a good combination and although it is said that opposites attract I think this may not be the case for us.
I hope the couples therapy we are undergoing and the work we have done researching the ways people interact with one another in relationships will salvage our marriage and make it happier and stronger.
* * * * * * * * * *
I have just returned from a visit of several hours at my mother-in-law's apartment where my wife is living. I stayed long enough to eat dinner and blessedly had an excuse to leave in order to take my psychiatric medication after the meal. I was bored senseless. I would have liked to talk about relationship issues but dared not bring the topic up. My wife had an x-ray today that revealed a one millimeter nodule in her lung. Her doctor is going to follow up on it in (I think) three weeks. They make take a biopsy of it if they cannot otherwise explain its presence. Given this bad news I decided to postpone relationship-related discussion.
I found myself not wanting to be in her company. I found myself disliking her and wishing I was anywhere but there. I know she appreciated the visit and the small affections I gave her. I think she needs reassurances that I still love and want her. I need those reassurances for myself. Why have I become so dismayed in her presence? I was so nervous that I smoked four cigarettes when I had only smoked one the night before. I think she is my remaining trigger for smoking. I find that when I am around her I am ill-at-ease and nervous and smoke to relieve that those feelings. It doesn't help, of course. I'm a bit bitter about her lack of support for my stop-smoking endeavor. She actually disdains the timing of it. But I digress. More will be said about this elsewhere.
So now I am home alone and comfortable. I feel no pressure on me. I am safe and by myself in familiar surroundings. It's time to blog about something else.
My wife is by nature an intuitive caregiver. It's as though she reads my mind to know what I need, physically or psychologically. She took care of me hand and foot during the time I was sick from the hepatitis C treatment. I think she got burned out from all of that caregiving. Even a person who by nature is a caregiver can only do so much. She must have pushed herself to the limit of what she could stand.
She fell down with pneumonia about two weeks ago and had to rely on me for help during her illness. I did the best I could but it didn't satisfy her. There were some times when I simply did not take her into account. For example, offering to make her dinner instead of her having her ask for it. This is an example of my limitations as a caregiver. I don't naturally know what a person needs or wants. I have to be asked.
She accused me of, "Not being there," when she needed me. I'm still not sure what that means. She said that she could not depend on me to take care of her. In retrospect, I think she wants from me the same level of caregiving that she provides. This simply isn't possible. I don't have those skills. I need to be taught them.
Her criticism became more harsh and finally, as I remember it, hateful. I lost my temper. I thew a kleenex box into the hallway in my rage. She left to go home to her mother's apartment but by phone we made up and she returned. But the day after the criticism began again as her condition worsened. The hateful incentive that came from her was too much from me.
I flew into a screaming rage. I yelled at her that I was doing the best I can. She yelled back that it wasn't good enough and that she could not depend on me to, "Be there." I still don't know what that means. I am there for her and ready to help her in any way possible. But it seems stuck in her mind that it is missing.
She has labelled this problem as a crisis in our relationship and that we need to go to couples therapy. So I dutifully set up appointments with five different therapists last week we met with each and decided who would work best for us. It was exhausting work going the same problems again and again in order to understand them ourselves and to observe the reactions of the therapist.
We finally settled on a man in his early fifties and have since met with him a second time. He was attentive and observed our emotional interplay. He engaged himself and helped us set boundaries. He also asked us to examine the feelings we had during our anger. He said that anger is usually an expression of fear and that we needed to get to the root cause of that fear in order to understand our anger. At least that's what I remember him saying. We will be seeing him twice a week until things settle down after which we will see him only once a week. Presumably we will reach a point where we no longer need to work with him at all.
During the process of selecting a couples therapist we also completed several online questionnaires from Personality Assessor . We learned a lot about Attachment Theory which attempts to quantify the nature of relationships and why some work and others do not. It also analyzes the traits a person possesses. I found it to be fascinating and have printed out all of my results. We have also taken a test provided by the Your Personality unique to that site. It's been a learning experience for me but I'm not so sure it has been for my wife.
My wife selected one of the therapists we interviewed as her own personal therapist. I am utterly glad to see her owning up to the fact that she needs a therapist and has found one with whom (so far) she can work. This is a big relief for me. For a long time I have wanted her to see a therapist. But being poor, she could only afford what the free Mission Mental Health Care facility would provide. When was assigned one she was a woman with whom she had no rapport whatsoever. So that was the end of that.
I think on top everything my wife is furious at me for trying to quit smoking (see my later post) during our relationship crisis. I cannot seem to explain to her that the stress caused by the two have utterly nothing to do with one another. On the one hand she congratulates me for the progress I have made and at times explodes with anger about it. This is confusing to me. I am not going to stop my quitting smoking project regardless because I know for a fact that it is not interfering with our relationship issues.
Meanwhile, I have been left alone in the apartment. I sometimes go over to her mother's apartment to visit or eat dinner. She comes over sometimes to pick something up or even just to visit. These visits are becoming more strained. I am withdrawn and unresponsive to her emotional needs. Living alone has done that to me. I've become more self-efficient emotionally and do not need the company of others. She senses this change in me. I think it makes her worried and angry at the same time.
Last night she visited and we sat at the dining room table talking. I tried to broach the suggestion made by our therapist about examining the root causes of our anger. This made her very agitated and defensive. I could tell she was getting angry at me and I tried to smooth things over. I think that made her even more angry. So what I wanted to start as an emotional dialog became a total communication breakdown.
I tell her that I love her. She doesn't respond. She says that she isn't sure if she loves me or not. I think this might be drama on her part. If she really didn't love me she would be moving out. But all of her stuff is still here but she comes over now and then to pick something up.
I have never been good at being alone. I was alone without and friends or family during the fall and winter of 2005. I was in a severe manic episode and had frequent psychotic breaks. It was later that I met Yaffa. But during that time of being alone I went crazy in the cold and darkness with nothing to do except participate in the Online Icarus Forum. I don't think that I ever recovered from the pain and loneliness I sufferred during that time. But I learned.
I think the experience turned me into an introvert when all of my life I have always been an extrovert. I tend to withdraw from emotional confrontations when I do not cave in to another's demands. I have become submissive. This tendency to withhold my feelings and affection for my wife has begun to show itself (why now I don't know) and it upsets her greatly. I tend to intellectualize whereas my wife is an emoter. It's not really a good combination and although it is said that opposites attract I think this may not be the case for us.
I hope the couples therapy we are undergoing and the work we have done researching the ways people interact with one another in relationships will salvage our marriage and make it happier and stronger.
* * * * * * * * * *
I have just returned from a visit of several hours at my mother-in-law's apartment where my wife is living. I stayed long enough to eat dinner and blessedly had an excuse to leave in order to take my psychiatric medication after the meal. I was bored senseless. I would have liked to talk about relationship issues but dared not bring the topic up. My wife had an x-ray today that revealed a one millimeter nodule in her lung. Her doctor is going to follow up on it in (I think) three weeks. They make take a biopsy of it if they cannot otherwise explain its presence. Given this bad news I decided to postpone relationship-related discussion.
I found myself not wanting to be in her company. I found myself disliking her and wishing I was anywhere but there. I know she appreciated the visit and the small affections I gave her. I think she needs reassurances that I still love and want her. I need those reassurances for myself. Why have I become so dismayed in her presence? I was so nervous that I smoked four cigarettes when I had only smoked one the night before. I think she is my remaining trigger for smoking. I find that when I am around her I am ill-at-ease and nervous and smoke to relieve that those feelings. It doesn't help, of course. I'm a bit bitter about her lack of support for my stop-smoking endeavor. She actually disdains the timing of it. But I digress. More will be said about this elsewhere.
So now I am home alone and comfortable. I feel no pressure on me. I am safe and by myself in familiar surroundings. It's time to blog about something else.
Comments
Post a Comment