One of the benefits of working at home, you can 'attend' staff meetings and not even have to pretend to pay attention.
Thanks again, everyone. You've all given me a lot to think about.
A few clarifications.
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Putting the focus on W's "failures" is just as unproductive & damaging as continuing to focus on your own guilt. What would "doing some real thinking about the things that SHE did" accomplish except to keep you engaged in behavior that will put that final nail in the R?
Quote: 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?
You might want to read this paragraph over a few times as if you're reading someone else's post. This pattern is going to have an effect on your W for sure, I just don't think it's going to be one that brings you closer to your positive goals.
This ambush/her refusing to talk pattern was from October 2006 to Jan 2007, after that, things, i thought, started to improve. This pattern is no longer as it was, though, as you all know, I do talk too damn much.
Sunny, thinking about her role, at least a little, eases my guilt and allows me to realize that the blame also lies with her. From April until now, I've rarely thought about her role in all of this. As many of you rightly point out, I am where I am in large part because of ME. It may not always come across in my posts, but it's something I feel in my bones.
Sunny, Nugget, et al -- I know she's not going to be able see "me" again until I leave her the hell alone. Puddle made a pretty accurate point, for the last week or so that I'm emotionally back at square 1. And I have kindof been reliving the finding out about the A feelings. It's not a happy emotional place to be. That said, I'm not wallowing in it like I did a year ago. Thanks to all of you, I feel a lot better about where I am and who I am.
I know, I know; the tools are there. I just need to be patient enough to use them.
Delia, that's funny as hell about a trophy room. Details? Please?
Nugget, you misunderstand me slightly, I think. I don't feel like a victim. I know and understand, for the most part, how my W came to feel about me/the marriage (remember my apology, which she said was 100% accurate about how my actions made her feel). If anything, in some ways, I feel as if she were the victim. This gets back round to Sunny's point earlier about why think about W's role in this. Because, the more I feel that she is the victim, the guiltier I feel and the more I feel that I have to make it up to her. Those feelings have been the hardest to overcome as I try to detach from her. Plus, the OM thing is trememdously hurtful. Were she talking to anyone else, it would hurt, but not nearly as much as this.
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You have wronged you wife also, that is why your R is where it is today. Does she follow you around telling you how you have wronged her, playing the victim, reminding you how much you have hurt her at every chance she gets. I am guessing no. I am guessing the only time she even says anything about how you have wronged her, is when you are playing the victim to her.
Yes, check, I've wronged her. However, she's only opened up to me two or three times outside of a few councelling sessions back in May, about how she felt about me. Honestly, if she started telling me about how i hurt her, I'd be grateful as it'd almost be a signal that she cares again. She's said she was unhappy for several years. While I'll readily admit things weren't perfect and that neither of us were truly happy all of the time, we never spoke to each other about how we felt. I'd love her to kick me in the jewels (by the way, kick away, I was wearing a cup). Oh, the other thing, other than telling her how hurt I was by finding the photos and the calling with OM, I would say about 90% of the substance of the rest of the R talk over the past few months (yes, I know too much of it) revolved around my new understanding of how I made her feel and how I wasn't a good H to her. I've forgiven her for the original A. It's over and done with. What bothers the hell out of me is that she told me ILYBNILWY in mid april, i leave for 3 weeks in Louisiana in late May. In August, I find photos of her and OM forwarded from her work pc to her hotmail account dated May 27. I know, I know, I have to let it go, but, damn, man. I've got a little man on my shoulder who keeps whispering in my ear, "it was all BS, she never really tried, she was just waiting for you to effe up and you did. it was all about him all the time she never stopped seeing him." For the most part, I keep that little F%%ker bottled up, but occassionally he escapes (witness my stupid, and not nearly as humorous as that of Revenge of the Nerds, panty raid).
I know that I have a tremendous reserve of strength and willpower that I've just not been able to tap into recently. I'm drilling, but it seems the bit keeps hitting granite and breaking.
I just have to remember, as all of you say, there is no relationship. I know it. I just haven't wanted to feel that yet. One of those sick, twisted facts of life. If I don't feel that there is not relationship, ultimately, I won't be able to rekindle a relationship with my W. How effed up is that?
