Worried I found DB too late

[cw68]

OK, got his response. Sorry if all this is too much for here, I'm new here, but I'm really looking for good advice on how to apply the DB principles here. I've read most of DB and all of DR, started re-reading DR last night.

Here's his response:

Thank you for this. I am really happy to hear that you have found some strength and are feeling like you can move forward.

I am so sorry that I disrespected you and our relationship and engaged in behaviors that were both hurtful and damaging to you and to us. I wish I had possessed the courage/fortitude to be more honest with you earlier on and to let you know the pain and loneliness that I was feeling and to find some type of constructive way (no matter how painful) to deal with all of this. I knew I was sabotaging our relationship and I truly hated that I was allowing myself to do so, however, I just did not have the strength or tools to deal with my own feelings and confront you/us in a manner that was constructive. Frankly I wanted to escape and that desire manifested itself in my behaviors. You deserved better. I also do realize that when confronted with my wrongdoings, I was standoffish and in denial of the pain I had caused and the poor judgment I had exhibited. I conducted myself
poorly when it came to us. You deserved better, I was/am capable of better, again, for what it is worth, I am sorry.

At the end of the day, I don’t blame/begrudge you for how you reacted. I’d forgive you, but I don’t feel you committed any wrongs in this regard. I didn’t agree with some of your perspectives and/or assessments, but I empathized, as strange as that sounds. By the way, I told this to anybody that I talked to about us, that things were difficult and that you were angry, but that I understood where you were coming from and when I looked rationally at what you were confronted with, I knew that your reactions were just the result of basic human instinct and your legitimate need to try to protect yourself and hold together the crumbling foundation of our lives and family as we knew them.

I’m crying once again as I type this, this is difficult for me, I have failed and caused hurt and put us on a path I never thought I’d have to walk. I guess my desire to please and to always say the right thing has at at this point become my great undoing, how ironic that by trying to be the stepford husband (or maybe just Stonewall Jackson) and sweep things under the table, I ultimately caused more pain, grief, damage than I ever could have imagined.

Anyway, we have to move forward now, somehow, someway. I am not sure I can come back to this marriage, though being apart has helped me distill my thoughts, realize the difficulty of being with the kids without you (it is very quiet in the house) and to confront the enormity of a separation and/or divorce.

I do love you and of course the kids and I admire what you’ve done as a parent with them, you’re a great mother, that is not an
achievement that many can claim and they are two wonderful kids. I have never regretted them no matter how difficult things have been with us.