Plank removed from my eye, too late for WAW? 6

[Heimlich]

Thanks everyone. You are all correct. I finally got a decent night's sleep for a change and managed to do a little thinking about myself. I was doing OK until I saw the photos of the OM and then the fact that she was calling him all the time. I couldn't believe her when she said they're just friends. Who knows, maybe she's telling the truth. Doubtful, but maybe. Regardless, discovering those things was like ripping off an almost healed scab from the wound of the A, ironically, almost a year ago when she told me about that. Yeah, I reverted back, not completely, but in many ways, to the fears and insecurities that had raised and that I thought I was over. Compounded to that is guilt at not being able to get through to my W when she was willing to work on our from Oct through April. Problem is, again ironically, is that I'm focusing too much on my own guilt/role in that R and not enough on my W's failures, something OT somewhat alluded to. She's right, I have felt a lot of pain in this M, some caused by my W. She wasn't meeting my needs just as I wasn't meeting hers. We talked at each other a lot and not enough too each other. And, worst sin of all, took each other for granted. My mom told me yesterday that I ought to get angry a little. I don't think that's the right thing to do, but I need to do some real thinking about the things that SHE did that got us her too.

She said that she feels violated that I went to the house. She's right, she should. But she never let me get over the A by talking to her about it. Any time I mentioned the pain she had caused me, I was "throwign it in her face." I needed to talk, she felt ambushed when she came home. I tried to set up a scheduled time once or twice a week to talk about us, she would never keep to that. This is her fault to. And her feelings of violation? Please, let's compare notes, she slept with another man in our bed. I decided I could forgive her for that. Then, when I thought things were going well, she was talking to her mom and friends at work about unhappy she was. She never told me, always someone else. Plus, I found out she was sending her mom my emails. Who's been violated a bit more?

I also realized that in many ways, I don't know who I am without her. I've known her since I was 19. She's been the only girl/woman I've ever been serious with. I've been a husband and father for so long, somewhere along the line, I forgot to figure out what I wanted.

Anyway, I gave her the house key back yesterday. She made a snarky comment 'can i trust you that you didn't make a copy'. Let it slide, just said yes. Asked if we could talk at some point in the future. She said maybe, but I'm so mad at your right now I don't want to talk to you. Said fine and left.

I'm going to float a quick idea to see if it makes sense to anyone: she sticks to any of my negatives to justify pushing me away because trying again would be hard.

Oh, and OT, I do think we COULD have a beautiful life together. I don't think it would be easy to get there or a certainty. I know I've written that as a given, but I don't think that it is. What bothers me is the never knowing. If we gave it an honest effort and came tot he conclusion, "nope, we're not for each other," that'd be much easier to accept than all of this shite.

Best to all. I'll be checking in here and there, but don't have the emotional bandwidth to really comment much at the moment.

Thanks again everyone. It means the world to me that all of you are pulling for me. Thank you.

BD