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I've started to type several things and deleted them. Your situation is very complicated. I think you need to discuss your college years with the therapist. I think you need to hear each other out, and try to understand where the other is coming from. Then I think you both need to leave it in the past and try to move forward.
I think you need to grow some self respect and stop trying to buy your wife's affection.
I agree with this. I believe the fact that you left your wife and son for 6 YEARS (If I understood it correctly) to go off to college is the crux of your problems. I think your wife greatly resented that and still does. Just like she never told you it was hard being pregnant in high school (which by the way it shouldn't have taken a rocket scientist to have figured out), she has never told you how much she resents that you abandoned her and your son.
Until you get to the root of those feelings that are decades old she will never heal enough to change.
My advice: at your next session, turn to her and tell her you want to know everything it made her feel when you left her for school. Be ready to hear the truth and let the counselor guide you.
I agree with this. I believe the fact that you left your wife and son for 6 YEARS (If I understood it correctly) to go off to college is the crux of your problems. I think your wife greatly resented that and still does. Just like she never told you it was hard being pregnant in high school (which by the way it shouldn't have taken a rocket scientist to have figured out), she has never told you how much she resents that you abandoned her and your son.
Until you get to the root of those feelings that are decades old she will never heal enough to change.
My advice: at your next session, turn to her and tell her you want to know everything it made her feel when you left her for school. Be ready to hear the truth and let the counselor guide you.
I do need to give Irish some credit, though. He didn't feel he was abandoning them. And she has gained a lot because he went to college. She needs to understand that too.
It is water under the bridge, but I wonder why they lived apart for all those years. It seems like they could have lived together while he was in school.
I find it interesting that nowhere in this lengthy thread is there any mention of parents or in laws. Did the in laws not want you to live together while you were in school? Did she and son live with her parents? Did your parents support all three of you for all that time? Who paid for college? Is wife still very much attached to her parents and therefore still a spoiled brat?
I'm thinking that since you were so young that there had to be a lot of parental support and/or interference. What role do the grandparents play with your son today?
I find it interesting that nowhere in this lengthy thread is there any mention of parents or in laws. Did the in laws not want you to live together while you were in school? Did she and son live with her parents? Did your parents support all three of you for all that time? Who paid for college? Is wife still very much attached to her parents and therefore still a spoiled brat?
I'm thinking that since you were so young that there had to be a lot of parental support and/or interference. What role do the grandparents play with your son today?
It may have been in the other thread, but some of those questions were answered. His parents paid for college. He worked and sent the money to her. I do wonder where the parents are in all of this now, and, as I said before, why they didn't live together when he was in school.
I find it interesting that nowhere in this lengthy thread is there any mention of parents or in laws. Did the in laws not want you to live together while you were in school? Did she and son live with her parents? Did your parents support all three of you for all that time? Who paid for college? Is wife still very much attached to her parents and therefore still a spoiled brat?
I'm thinking that since you were so young that there had to be a lot of parental support and/or interference. What role do the grandparents play with your son today?
My parents paid for my school and babysat when my wife would ask them to. She would also ask her parents. Usually either her friends or her parents watched him. She and him lived in an apartment as she, wanted independence
I do need to give Irish some credit, though. He didn't feel he was abandoning them. And she has gained a lot because he went to college. She needs to understand that too.
It is water under the bridge, but I wonder why they lived apart for all those years. It seems like they could have lived together while he was in school.
Oh, I agree. I know he didn't think he was abandoning them. I'm not even saying he did abandon them. But, I think his WIFE thinks he did. That's just my assessment of the situation. The OP has already admitted that he was pretty clueless about how his wife felt being pregnant at 18. For me, that's kind of hard to understand. I mean, who wouldn't think it was tough being pregnant at 18!
I just think that there is something rooted in that time that significantly shaped this marriage and stunted the wife. Well, really stunted both of them. It happened a long time ago, but I don't think it's water under the bridge...I think it's what's drowning them.
I don't think the wife should earn a pass on her bad behavior just because she had a child young. And I don't think the OP should be made to feel guilty for "abandoning" her and the child while he got his education. He sent money to her and saw them on weekends. What about a young mother with a husband in the military who doesn't see her husband for extended lengths of time? Does that give her the right to punish and treat her husband like dirt for the next 18 years? I don't think so!
Irish, you said your wife used to be waiting at the door for you to come home from work. When did that change? What was happening in your life when that changed? I think that is the area of life you should be thinking about and working on, not the early pregnancy. I've said it before and it bears repeating - having a child young is not the end of the world. It happens, and it does not have to emotionally stunt you the rest of your life.
You consistently give the power to your wife, despite your actions. You move into the guest house but then tell her you miss her and don't want a divorce. She views it as an opportunity to have the bed to herself, not as a threat to her marriage. You are much too tender hearted and wear your feelings on your sleeve, and she uses that against you (instead of valuing it as she should). If you are going to move into the guest house, she must view it as a wake up call that the marriage is in trouble. I know you don't like confrontation, but you do need to tell her you cannot continue to live with her behavior of you and it must change. And there has to be the "or else" factored in.
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