Drowning after 23 years!

[CBK]

Thanks all, Last night was a another dagger in my heart. Don't get upset at me, but I did need my W for support to make it through. We spent the night at a friends home with all of our marrited friends. Hard to believe that she is okay with throwing this all away.

Our problems before were classic. We were never good communicators. She always nagged me, couldn't do anything right, I never validated her feelings, never really listened to her. I have always been a glass half full guy and her a glass half empty person. She said I was very controlling and bullying to her and made all the decisions - which, during counseling we found that just wasn't true. It came out I was more manipulating to get my way. The biggest issue was bringing up our son. We never agreed on what should happen. Either I was too hard on him or too soft on him - he manipulated us both and that was the main source of our arguments. Since we weren't good communicators, she would always wait until an issue was at hand to bring them up, then lecture me or the kids - drove us crazy. When we kept saying to cut it short, it pissed her off (much more complex than that). I would let things just build up inside of me, then all at once let it come out, almost alwasy at night when we would get in bed - I would be very upset. This happened about every-other-month if that. We quit doing things together as well. Our life was our kids. We travled all over the place since they were young and then sports took over for both kids, especially our son. One time, my W was in Hawaii for a waterpolo tournament and I was in Florida for a basketball tournament. We lost touch with each other. But we both thought that once they got into college we would reconnect. But alas, the OM stepped, showed her that she does matter and he validated her feeliings.

I have a DB coach on Wednesday and will ask about the A and what I should do. Puppy, h4u and h4h make a lot of sense - but will do a lot of soul searching on this issue.

I do know that as long as OM is in the picture, she will not react to what I am doing right now. That is why telling the OMW is so attractive, get him out of the picture and have him work on his own problems... To me, he is scum.

Thanks all