Who’s To Blame
Who’s To Blame
I’ve been married 16 years and thought my wife and I had a good relationship. We used to talk for hours on end. Most of her requests I would fulfill. For example, she loved steamed crabs and beer, and even though it was expensive, I would get it for her on an almost daily basis.
When she wasn’t working, which was most of our marriage, I asked her to cook and clean, but she told me she didn’t like that kind of work and rarely did it. Both of us were religious and took marriage seriously. I tried to make her happy. For example, if she said she was sad, I would carry her off to a hotel. She loved to stay in hotels.
In about January 2005 my wife was once again working. I noticed she mentioned a guy’s name a lot, but I didn’t think much of it mainly because of our relationship and my wife is gregarious by nature. As the months went on I noticed she was always on the cell phone, and if the kids were in the vicinity, she would tell them to go away.
So I got real curious as to what she was talking about that was so secretive. I put a mini-recorder in the car. When I retrieved the recorder, I got the shock of my life. On the recorder she was relaying to a friend her affair with her coworker, and how he wanted to break it off because he felt bad about being unfaithful to his girlfriend.
Just to imagine some other man doing things to your wife is a horrible feeling. She didn’t have him use protection, and she would kiss me afterward. It was just unimaginable. I’m still trying to make sense of it all. I always prided myself so much on my marriage and family other people would come to me for advice. I feel like a failure.
I reasoned my feeling for her would come back, but it didn’t. I saw many articles that said my anger would subside, but it only subsided when we parted. I know what the experts say, but it would never have been the same. All the experts say something was lacking, but I go over and over and over this in my head. Why does it seem I put up with her, and she kicked me to the curb?
Nate
Nate, you have been abused twice by the "experts." First, by their suggestion there is a surefire way to make any relationship work, and second, by making you feel like a failure. Since they have defined themselves as experts, they have defined you as the problem.
We’ve mentioned before that the best-selling relationship author of the last 20 years has a "Ph.D." from a school which was shut down by the state of California as a diploma mill. His ex-wife and former business partner is the author of more than a dozen relationship books. Last time we checked she was married to her fifth husband.
This whole field rests on a very shaky foundation. About problems in marriage, most of us would agree, "There is available in modern science a large body of facts bearing on these points: enough to clear up most of the problems that arise." That sounds like a contemporary statement.
It isn’t. It was written in 1925 by Paul Popenoe, the father of marriage counseling. The same advice is dressed up for each generation as a cure-all, but the divorce rate is a silent witness to the truth. We cannot control what others may do, and no one has the power to manufacture love in another.
We find no fault in you. Your marriage looks like the classic case of a giver and a taker, and there is nothing more you could have done to keep this spoiled woman from kicking you to the curb.
Wayne and Tamara
Authors and columnists Wayne and Tamara Mitchell can be reached at www.WayneAndTamara.com.
Send letters to: Direct Answers, PO Box 964, Springfield, MO 65801 or email: DirectAnswers@WayneAndTamara.com.
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Posted on Apr 30, 2007 by Site Admin
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