I did see the post from Valora and I appreciate the feedback as to what my wife may be feeling. I try to understand the pain she may be going through and I know the scars both physical and emotional will always be there. But I can’t pretend to know what she may be going thorough, as dark as they may be, if she doesn’t present it; even when asked.

I think that was my point, really. You can’t possibly understand the pain she is going through, but yet you were placing expectations on her on how she should have handled her grief and the situation.

For example:

But when our son died, I thought ok, we can do this together, you can lean on me and I’ll lean on you and we can heal together. When we had our other children that was exactly what we did, we “suffered” together. Meaning we tag-teamed in night feedings, sickness, diaper changes. All the things that go on with taking care of a newborn. I expected that we would do the same with our loss. So you can imagine how disappointing and heart wrenching it felt when my wife said that she had “moved on” She never leaned on me for any comfort and it felt like I was standing out there on my own. I was supposed to take care of her and it was like she never needed me for that

Do you see the problem with doing this? Placing expectations? You sounded upset with your wife over this, but it may have been you and your own expectations that disappointed you rather than how your wife chose to cope with the death of her child. From what you’ve written, it sounds like you were expecting things to be handled a certain way, even though there is no right or wrong way to go through grief and people cope in many different ways…. then when your expectations that you had set weren’t met, it increased a negative opinion you have of your marriage and your wife.

I’m sort of focusing on this just so that you’re aware of it… when you place expectations on how you think people should handle things or have a preconceived idea of how they will be handled, it increases relationship negativity and tension when the person handles them any other way than how you think they will… because you will feel disappointed and feel like they weren’t meeting your needs or expectations, which really isn’t fair to them. It’s sort of an important lesson to learn no matter who you’re in a relationship with. And this is especially important to understand in this case because your expectations absolutely added to your negative feelings towards your wife, and if you decide you want to fix things, in order to do so, you have to take ownership of your part in your own negative feelings. I hope the way I’m explaining this makes sense.