marriage help

[JEFF]

WELL BEFORE I WAS MARRIED I TALKED TO A FEW FEMALES ON THE PHONE AND INTERNET AND AT THE TIME WAS DATING THIS GIRL, I WAS DEPLOYED AT THE TIME, SHE FOUND OUT About it and was mad and evently ok with it and stayed with me, i came home for some r and r and we got married and then i went back to iraq 3 days after we got married, i then came home in november, everything was ok until feburary and i begain to talk to one of those girls i talked to before and she left a voice mail and my wife heard it and now wants to get a divorce and is living with her mom about 3 miles away from me, this girl i talked to lives in flordia and we live in north carolina, i never ment her just by internet and phone,so how do i save my marriage and get my wife to trust me and to live back with me? i realize my mistakes and said i was sorry and i am willing to go to counseling for marriage and she agreeded to go to, but on one hand she wants divorce and seperation papers and i dont want either one of those. so what do i do? please help..

[Melody Brooke]

Jeff,
When trust is broken it is hard to get it back, but it sounds like your wife knew you had been dating others as you dated her, so the trust was shaky to begin with. Plus you guys have not had enough time together to really know if you can trust each other or not!

When trust has been violated (or perceived to have been violated) in any way people often feel thrust into a kind of survival mode that makes them feel the "victim" of the other person's behavior. As a result they struggle to "survive" in those old "flight/fight/flee/freeze" modes that are a sign of feeling intensely threatened. You wife then see's you as the "Bad guy" and herself as the "helpless victim". When you try to defend yourself you end up looking MORE like the bad guy.

So what do you do?1) you empathize with her pain and fear 2) you admit to your part in triggering her fear and let her know you understand why that would scare her 3) you respect that she has to do what she has to do and don't try to "make" her do anything. Once you get into therapy with her, continue to empathize with her feelings until she feels really understood. THEN and only then to you talk about what might have happened to make you talk to this other girl. Are you afraid of getting close to her? What if she gets close enough to see the real you and she doesn't like you? Could your calling this other girl have happened because you are afraid your wife will reject you if she really knows you?

Given you really want to be close to her you have to find out what it is inside of you that motivated you to do something to threaten your marriage. Doing it in the context of therapy will help her to have some sense of empathy for the fear or pain that is underneath that behavior.