My Wife and I Are Ready to Kill Each Other

I totally understand your impasse. In order to make a relationship work (or to repair a flailing relationship), both members of the couple must be willing to look at themselves as individuals and take responsibility for their role in the disintegration of the relationship (this means that each partner must look at what he/she is doing to break the connection and what he/she can do to build the connection). Because your wife has been so wounded by you, she behaves like an outraged victim who can think of nothing but pointing the finger at you.

While you both agree that you were wrong in the way you behaved, sooner or later she is going to have to look at what she has done or continues to do to provoke your anger. Make no mistake. I am not saying that you handled your anger properly (cheating and physically acting out against her are symptoms of improperly handled anger); and you are obviously going to need to learn how to properly communicate your anger towards her rather than act your anger out. Part of your handling your anger properly will include telling her directly what she is doing or saying that angers you right in the moment that you feel angered. She must hear you if she hopes to repair the marriage. This is our long term goal.

Until we can even think of addressing the long term goal, you must first accept that your wife isn't ready to hear your feedback about whatever she is or isn't doing. Before she can hear your side, she needs to feel heard and understood by you. Until her feelings are resolved, she won't be available to your side of the equation. Your patient listening is the path to that resolution. As you listen to her now, you need to be invisible. It's her time to talk, and your time to listen and understand her without inserting yourself at all. Ask her to tell you what you did that hurt her and what she needs to feel happy with you. Allow her to revisit all the horrible things that she has suffered and let her tell you how she felt. Do this for several weeks and watch for signs that she is moving forward. If you see that her resentment seems to be softening, then keep up the good work and give her more of the same treatment.

As long as there is progress (her anger is diminishing and she is warming toward you), then you know that you are on the right track and you can continue the same approach. If she feels truly understood by you, she will begin to heal and her resentment should fade. Your listening is necessary for her healing. When her resentment fades, she should be more ready to listen to you and take your feelings into account.

Read my book, Till Death Do Us Part (Unless I Kill You First) and become adept at emotional listening, which is fully outlined in the chapter, 'Listening with the Third Ear: How to Use Your Ears to Resolve Conflicts. ' After you have listened to her over time, and she seems to be less resentful, then you can ask her is she is ready to hear what she can do to build the connection for you (and what she is doing to break the connection and even anger you at times). To properly communicate your feelings, use the steps that I outline in the book. If you find that she won't make room for your thoughts and feelings after you have truly listened to hers, then she will need to understand how her relationship with you has reactivated her childhood wounds.

I suspect that the reason why she tolerated your mistreatment in the first place is due to the fact that she was abused as a child. Prior abuse primed her to allow your mistreatment (we gravitate to familiar experiences). Also keep in mind that a person who was abused as a child lives with a lot of pent up anger that is crying to be released. Her allowing you to mistreat her gave her the perfect excuse to release not only her anger toward you but also the anger that she harbors toward the people who abused her in childhood.

If she can't drop the indignant victim role, then she will need to work on healing the childhood wounds that are fueling her rage and preventing her from moving ahead with you. If this is how the story shakes down, then she will need the help of a therapist to resolve the unfinished business that is getting in the way of your progress. If she won't go alone, then a good couples therapist should be able to help her work on these issues in a joint therapy setting. Let me know how you make out.