Anger and Hurt

After being away from my wife for a couple of months, there are a lot of things I see more clearly. It’s crazy to me to not have been able to see these things while we were together. It’s so clear to me now. One of the things I am aware of is that there were a lot of things unsaid in our marriage. Needs weren’t asked for and hurts weren’t expressed. And these are things that can destroy a marriage from within. There were things that I should have said to my wife that I didn’t and there were things that my wife wanted, but didn’t ask for. Resentment built up until it finally exploded all over the place. I had a choice to say what I needed to say, but I let my wife’s inability to speak her truths, keep me from speaking mine. I was fearful and I withdrew. I stopped being my true self in the marriage. I hid away. I let things slide that I should never have let slide.

I know that I want a much deeper relationship with my wife and son. I want to be able to be myself with them. I want to speak the truth to both of them always and be present in each and every moment that we’re together. The only way to have a deep and meaningful relationship with someone is to be honest with them. That may mean that you have to hurt their feelings. You may need to say things that they don’t want to hear. That can be really hard, but people know when you’re not being honest with them. They may not be aware that they know, but on some level they know. And on some level they can’t trust you. This is the feeling I had with my wife. I don’t really trust her because she doesn’t know how to be honest with me. When I’m not meeting a need for her, she attacks me. When she is feeling afraid, she attacks me. If she feels vulnerable, she attacks. That’s not truthful. I recently learned that perhaps because I hold a lot of hurt in this relationship, she must hold the anger. So there is the possibility that she might (subconsciously) be trying to get me to hold more of the anger by pushing my buttons. I think my wife has a lot of hurt that she can’t express and maybe that’s why she tries to get me angry. Maybe she feels she can’t express it because I hold so much hurt. This also might be why she attacks my manhood. She doesn’t feel that a man should have hurt feelings and that he’s not much of a man if he does and if he expresses this. So she attacks my manhood to make me angry to prove to her that I’m a real man...It kind of makes sense to me. My wife isn’t a mean person and I know there is a reason for all of the anger towards me. This would make sense to me. So I must resolve the hurt in my life so that I can hold more anger to allow her to be able to express her hurt. I want that for her because I know she has a lot of hurt that she needs to let go of and I want her to truly be happy. Maybe I haven’t been allowing her to be able to let go. I don’t know if there’s any validity to what I’m saying, but it sounds good to me. I’m gonna work on it...