Dear Checkers,

Your situation sounds just like mine, how my marriage use to be, with me being the one always doing all the work to fix things and to make the marriage last. I had to attend counseling sessions alone for six long years.... which truthfully did me well in the long run, for both my marriage and myself - my husband only started to attend counseling sessions with me within the last two years of it all (8 years in all).

I personally felt that my husband was really sorry and truly did want to change even though he did not always know how to make the change happen for years on end, but finally with many failed attempts and many words said that hurt us both, he (we) finally managed to work through all the hardships, past emotional wounds and a few addictions.... I am glad that I stayed around to fight with my husband and not always against him - no matter how hard life got or how selfish he seemed to act.

I honestly found out (after a few months of counseling together) that my husband needed my help & uncondictional love to enable him to take those first few steps in actually changing the things that he needed to change and in admitting (to him self & me) the HE the MAN / the MALE / the PROVIDER of this marriage and family had failed.... a very hard thing to do.
My husband truly was lost, frightened, angry and scared all at the same time. He feared from within that he was destroying us and that the love we once held for each other was gone forever, and he would be without me one day, due to his own selfish & unloving actions.

Now please keep in mind that while my husband is not perfect and that he still had some matters to work on and some tough wrongs to face up to and to walk through - he is a much better person today...... even if it did take many years to make it all happen.

Please try to hang in there and try to understand that your wife, now a mother, will feel the pull of motherhood for about a good year now until she is able / ready to move onto the next task at hand, and that she needs your support to make this happen and that she still needs your unconditional love to pull it all together, as to make the marriage and family survive the tolls of life and failure.

If you do not mind I would like to add your marriage to my prayer list..... that which I read and pray over every night.

LoVe,
Rhapsody - ((( hugs )))

P.S.
Have YOU ever sit down and wrote out a list of all the wrongs, per your interpretation of the marriage, and have your wife do the same..... then share them with each other? You might be surprised to what each other actually sees as a problem in the marriage (the list is often different for each person involved).

P.S. P.S.

BTW............ did I happen to mention that we have been married now for 20 years, celebrating year number 21 in April 2007 - (so smile ) for you see, there is HOPE!!!