Our Emotional Dance

My therapist told me two days ago that if he were me he would "pull back" from my wife. He had to think for a moment after I posed this question to him, "in your professional opinion what do you think I should do at this point with my wife?" He prefaced his reply with reiterating the basic understanding that my goal is to come back together with her and restore and build a true loving relationship. I know that his reply seems odd and counter intuitive in a certain way. This is a gamble I know.

I am afraid of trusting my temporary feelings of strength that I can do this. Is it just a false pretense? Will I be devastated should it not work? …Probably…but the alternative hasn’t worked either…or at least not obviously so. Should I continue to “pursue her” with a heart of patient healing, or should I back away and chance a detachment that could sever the hope for tomorrow altogether? Or could this be a jolt from within to synchronize our steps? Or will this be the breaking of our final two fingers which still hold us together? Lord, please show me the way.

We have been separated for 6 1/2 months now. It has been a torturous ride... a turbulent rocky ride that stems back throughout our 21 year marriage...all while having and raising our 5 gorgeous children. I tried so hard to love her through her deep insecurities; ones that stemmed back long before me, but I couldn’t seem to be able to establish that deep emotional connection that I yearned for. I wanted and needed that with her so badly. Maybe she misunderstood my intentions. Why did she feel threatened? Why couldn’t she trust me? If only we could have connected at the soul, like we connected with our physical appearances. Our friends used to kid us and call us Barbie and Ken. But it was her beauty that stood above all else. We made incredibly beautiful and gifted children together...and for that I feel blessed. I realize that so much of our energies went into them, and with time, the marriage suffered by eroding our priority of investing the "she and I" only times. That, together with MY FEAR that the more I tried to become emotionally intimate with her and the more I made myself vulnerable to her, the more I was mistreated, uncared for and flat out abused. I eventually developed a mindset that my attempts to meld together with her created more hurt. That is a pattern that comes with Narcissistic Personality Disorder (NPD)...something that I didn't understand until recently.

It was a dance…a dance where we couldn’t get our feet to move in concert with one another. When I would pull, she would push…when she moved to the left I was already moving to the right. For short periods things felt good, but before we knew it, we were dusting ourselves off of the ground again. Our knees became battered and scarred…but even worse, my soul became dry… and I presume hers too. I don’t know. Could she even realize that? One thing for sure, I never felt like she valued the importance and benefits of a true emotional bond…a true soul connection. Why? Were the battle wounds in her heart from the men earlier in her life too thick to reopen and blend? How did she view me that prohibited her openness?

Lord, I pray that you will meet me right now. I need warmth. I need love. I need to give love. I need to share my soul with someone who wants and values me. I hope that some woman some day will value what I have to offer and look to share hearts. I want to dance to the beautiful symphony music that surrounds us…and lock steps to move with grace. God, show me the way…show me my steps.