WAW - Very confused and devestated - pt 5

[confusedinpa]

What I'm trying to keep in front of me is that I am choosing to have a good day/nite. Regardless of how my wife acts/behaves, I am deciding to still enjoy my time. If she wants to enjoy it with me, then great, if not, I will still enjoy my moments.

Like theroadback had tried to highlight, I could have chose to be anxious/suspicious for the entire time my wife was out getting get her neck worked on. If I went that route, I would have chosen to have a bad nite and would have had a bad attitude that my wife would have seen when she came home (no matter how much I would have tried to hide it). I am sure she would not have been thinking about me or my negative/painful emotions while she was out.

Instead, I chose to feel compassion for my wife as I know her neck and back has been bothering her. I know I can help her back with a massage, but I am comfortable with my "short comings" that I can not help her neck with a massage.

I decided to take the time to go someplace that my boys and I enjoy to go to eat. Then I decided to play with them in and enjoy the time with them until it was time for them to go to bed.

After they went to bed, my wife wasn't home yet. Again, I could have chose to be anxious/hurt that she wasn't home yet. Instead I chose to do things for me to make me happy. It would not have made me happy being anxious/hurt that my wife wasn't home yet.

Instead I watched a show that I wanted to watch and did things that made me feel good about myself (i.e. putting some dishes away, reading, etc.).

So what I'm coming to the realization is that my wife doesn't hold the key to my happiness, I do. I want my wife to participate in my happiness and if she doesn't I may be disappointed, but I can still be happy.

I know it sounds like motherhood and apple pie type of stuff. If I read this 3 weeks ago I wouldn't have believed it. Nor if you told me even 2 weeks ago that I would be writting something like this in my situation without my wife deciding to stop the divorce or give the relationship another try, I would have said you were crazy.

Now I see that saving the relationship/marriage involves saving myself first. I can't do anything while I'm wallowing in the muck. I must survive and thrive first.