Know that your W is going to be angry about many things you do or don't do. That doesn't mean you're not doing the right thing. WAS often react negatively but they'll get over it. You cannot let the fear of scaring her away guide your decisions and actions.
Thank you for pointing that out, that is absolutely an area that I need to work on. When I am having higher moments, this is less of a problem. When I am feeling down, I go back over every action that I have done and over analyze how she may perceive it. I drive myself to a point of fear/panic that isn't healthy.
I certainly contributed to the situation that our relationship is in today. I took her for granted and kept the marriage on auto-pilot. I just always assumed that we were the high-school sweethearts that would be together forever. I didn't take the time or make the effort to stop and ask her how things are going in a sincere way. I was caught up in my own life and didn't place much effort in understanding what her needs are and how they have changed. I felt that by buying her the things that she wanted and taking her on nice trips, that was enough.
I was a very poor listener. When she would try and talk to me I quickly focused on finding an answer/solution instead of just listening and truly understanding. This is a trait that I am working on changing daily even with basic communication with co-workers and friends. I still have a ways to go on this. I have always known that she bottles up feelings and emotions. Knowing this, I should have put more effort in getting through to her.
When I finished my MBA last October, I told her that I wanted to start running with her. She had started the year prior and has done really well with it. She lost a lot of weight and built a lot of self-confidence. I did start running with her and ran my first 5K earlier this year. I was feeling good about it and was beginning to truly enjoy it. After all of this went down, she told me that she felt like I was pretending which hurt a lot. That isn't something that you can "pretend" to do for any amount of time. This may have been part of her justification.
There are lots of things to work on, no worries, life is about continuing to push forward, continuing to improve, continuing to do better and be better and you will.
We all contributed to how our relationships currently are. But don't take the lion's share of the problems or the burdens. Relationships are a DUAL responsibility, don't ever be bullied or beaten into thinking differently. She had a responsibility to communicate honestly and openly, women like to think that men are mind readers but really we aren't. Women have the emotional parts of the brains more developed that we do and therefore they are more intuitive, better at reading people & situations and it gives them an advantage when sizing up their husbands & future mates and also when communicating with others. The downside is that they assume we have the same ability and we really don't. The other downside is that they aren't as good as they like to believe, if they could read minds as well as they wish we could, they would know we're clueless and oblivious to most of this stuff.
Buying her nice things and thinking it's enough is a male way of thinking and it doesn't work, we're programmed that it works but it doesn't. In fact it's jerks that usually don't buy gifts for their gf's or wives that build more attraction with their partners instead of "nice guys" who go to the effort of doing the nice things and buying gifts.
It's all a form of manipulation though, when you buy gifts hoping they will love you for it and be with you for it, it's not genuine. Alot of guys will go overboard when their wives/gf's leave them and do just that, buy a $hit load of gifts and their wives/gf's see through it as manipulation and usually lost attraction even quicker for these guys because of this.
FYI - I was one of those guys. This past christmas though, I didn't buy her a thing, I was actually quite proud of it, I think she expected alot too but I think (and again it's my own perception) that her attraction for me has grown because of this. I'm trying hard to gain her affection, in fact I'm not trying at all (I moved her out in January).
When she lost a lot of weight and built alot of self-confidence, she started thinking back then that she could do better, don't ever think that her current mind set is something new, it's been building up in her for quite some time (possibly years).
Her telling you that you were "pretending" is just another excuse, a way of lowering your self-esteem while pumping her's up a few notches and it worked. You doubted yourself, questioned yourself, started thinking about all the things you've done wrong. I doubt she has that mindset now, you have to be confident now as well and you can't fake it.
