Wife wants perpetual empathy

Oh my, that sounds familiar. My ex always treated me as her sounding board for every question, every thought really, *that passed through her head. I often joke that her mind is like one of those big buckets at a water park that slowly fills with water until it’s unbalanced and tips, and then everything spills out. Once I came out to her—and then ended up meeting the love of my life 6 months later—she was very torn between feeling hurt and betrayed and angry and afraid, and wanting to talk and talk and talk as she’s always done. I’ve had days where I felt genuinely sorry and concerned, and other days when I wanted to just tell her to grow up and leave me alone.

The way I’ve chosen to handle it is to decide what our relationship COULD be moving forward, and if I even WANTED a relationship with her, and then work towards what I came up with. Our friendship has always been rather one-sided, and as a married couple, we always got along best when I just shut up and went along with her. It was frustrating, but my observation with her is that she’s much harder on relatives than friends, and I felt that once we weren’t married and living together, we might actually have a more positive relationship.

In the nearly 2 years since I came out to her, we’ve run the gamut of shouting matches, chilly silences, inappropriate comments and awkward kindness. Now that we’re officially split and I’ll be moving in with my boyfriend in a couple months, it’s still weird, but we are getting along better than we have in years. She still expects the empathy you speak of—I hear constantly about how alone she will be, how I’ll be having my "fabulous social life" (hah!) while she sits home, how she’ll never be able to trust another guy. I take a deep breath and ignore it, because I want to stay cordial with her, and I know this will pass.

How you choose deal with it will really depend on what kind of relationship you want (or can expect to have) with her moving forward, and how much effort you’re willing to put into it. My boyfriend’s ex has shown no interest whatsoever in any kind of friendship with him, and treats him like a glorified babysitter and basically a stranger. It’s very hurtful, and I don’t blame him for not having the slightest interest in a friendship with her. She doesn’t deserve it. My ex is difficult and childish and unbalanced, but she’s not a mean-spirited person, and while our future friendship will be as one-sided as it ever was, I feel like we still have some bond of history and some degree of mutual concern that’s worth preserving. It’s meant biting my tongue often enough to get very used to the taste of blood, but it’s getting better. So take a breath when she demands the empathy, and decide if it’s worth it to you to put up with it in the hopes that the bad feelings will fade. You will most likely do all the heavy lifting in the relationship for some time to come, which is hardly fair considering everything else going on in your head, but if you see some value in it, keep trying.

 

I have often found that it is infinitely better to bear my ex-wife's talk than the icy silence that immediately preceded our breakup.

When silence strikes, it is because she is plotting against you (usually on advice of a lawyer).

Take her talking (despite the uncomfortable and tiresome effort) as a good sign. She needs this, as a way of working through this situation, and you need to show that you are empathetic, in the sense that you are also saddened and hurt by this thing that is happening to your relationship.

In other words, listen actively, ask open-ended questions, show that you care how she feels, drop whatever you are doing, put the smartphone away, etc. Give her all of your attention. It's hard work, but it might pay off in a possibly amicable split.

 

been there. marriage didn't break up because of my orientation, but because of her self harm. but she used to call looking for "advise" then it would turn into venting, using me as a verbal/mental punching bag till i had to cut her off and told her to go through the lawyers for her "gripes" now it's barely speaking even with regards to my son, fortunatly he lives with me. my advise, for what it's worth, is you can be empathetic with out being a door mat, it's up to her then if she wants to move forward in a mature manner. Good luck hun.