<journaling> I struggle with myself at times in how I respond to my W sometimes. She says she appreciates it when I communicate with her now -- but it is pleasant only because she gets to hear me admit to my faults while avoiding hers. We never address her A, her MLC or her shift in values. I realize I may never get an admission or and acknowledgment from her for why she is walking away, but it's so unfair.
When I began dating my W over 17 years ago, she was coming out of a bad relationship. W has had self-esteem problems stemming from an abusive step-mother, which has translated into a string of bad relationships with men who did not treat her right. W was going to therapy with a support group for co-dependency. Her problem was that she had been choosing "broken" men assuming they would love her back for "fixing " them. I realize now that it gave her a measure of control over them as well, something else she enjoys.
W said that when she began dating me she was ready to start a relationship with someone who was whole and unbroken, someone she didn't have to "fix" -- me. But I saw the person she really was, the beautiful, God-fearing soul she had deep down despite life's adversities, and that is who I fell in love with.
But all through the years of our relationship, W kept putting herself down, saying I married "damaged goods". I know she was partly fishing for complements from me, but also she was partly feeling some of her self-esteem angst. I spent a lot of time trying to convince her she was wrong, sometimes getting a bit upset with her for "trashing the woman I love".
And I have had to deal with her lack of trust problems too. She sometimes expressed disbelief that I could have really fallen in love with her, that she was too damaged and unworthy of being loved. She would frequently doubt my love was real, and I spent so much energy trying to convince her otherwise.
Oddly, as she gained experience in her career and then later as a mother, her confidence grew. Along with her arrogance. I thought she was past the esteem problems, but those never really went away. There just never was a healthy middle ground.
So now that W has suppressed the soul of the woman I married and appears to have lost her mind, I am beginning to think that I agree with her original premise. The point I am trying to make is that in my most recent conversations with W I find I am debating with myself to tell her this:
"You know, W, all these years you've been trying to tell me you were damaged goods, even arguing with me. But now I think you have finally convinced me."
