Quote: So by accepting the part I played in allowing our marriage to deteriorate and allowing us to drift apart, and then by asking for forgiveness from her, I found I could open my heart to forgiving her.
When exactly did you ask for her forgiveness, and when exactly did you forgive her?
I feel closer to being able to forgive, but I KNOW I'd have an extremely hard time saying it to her. And, I also understand that I played a part in our drifting apart. I guess I'm trying to find out about the chicken and the egg here... In your sitch, did forgiveness happen before healing or after...or simultaneously?
When did you discover what your part of the deterioration was? You see, for me it's difficult to pinpoint. I can't put my finger on any one thing, and I know my W would tell you differently. For example, in terms of us drifting apart, I was working a lot, trying to move up, get paid more and provide more. I was wrapped up in the Internet craze and began getting WAY too focused on stock/money. As a result, I kind of neglected the simple, day-to-day things in life. She hinted to me at times that she wasn't entirely happy, or that certain things were bothering her and I didn't clue in. Simultaneously, I've always been kind of tense and grumpy, so this kind of made her distance from me even further, I think. For the most part, I simply WAS NOT nurturing our R like I should have and my attention was elsewhere. This is what I can come up with for my 50%. If you asked her side of the story, she would agree that we drifted a little, but that isn't the core issue. She would say that she never really thought she loved me, that we've always been good friends and not much more, and that we M too young, etc. Her reasons for doing what she did was because she felt trapped at home with kids all day and didn't feel close to me like she thought a W should. Her wall went up, then she became a WAW and had her A.
So, my quandry here is that I don't think we'd agree on what went wrong in our M. She has a much more universal approach that we should never have M while I really see a steady deterioration over the last four years. She really and truly believes this and has for many years now. This is my primary concern: that she won't get over the fact that she will never love me like she should.
What do you think? Is this valid, invalid, she needs time and some love language attention? What?
Sorry KAW, I kind of drifted from my original point in posting.
