WAW - Very confused and devastated - pt 10

[confusedinpa]

However, at the risk of sounding down right cruel I have to say that she sounds very whinny and complains all the time and lays all the guilt at your feet without her accepting any responsibility of the breakdown of the marriage.

When she goes on about still feeling hurt and not being able to trust me anymore, she isn't whinny, or at least how I percieve as whinny, she is usually crying and I feel the hurt/sadness/disappointment from her. Perhaps she has done such a good job of laying on the guilt or that I'm blinded by love, or what, but I do accept my share of the responsibility of treating her cruelly by making her feel unlovable.

I know she doesn't accept any of the responsibility of the breakdown of the marriage. At one point I challenged her on that and she had said that she did everything that she knew to do. She got us to marriage counselling, she tried to make changes (i.e. weight loss, hair, sex, etc.) but she said that I didn't get it and she didn't know how to get through to me. She had read countless number of books (she filled 6 milk crates full when she packed up to move out) She felt that I had given up and stopped loving her many years ago. Looking back, I see how she felt that way.

Along the way, I had gotten so focus on giving her things, I forgot to give her myself. I felt I had to shoulder all the burden and responsibilities of provide for the family, I forgot that I had a fully capable, wonder wife that wanted to walk with me. Instead, I constantly left her by the road side.

She had kept my love tanks filled all these years while hers went empty and starving.

The part that she owned is that she couldn't tell me I didn't know how bad it was. Remember, I am a DAM, so I didn't hear/understand what she was trying to tell me. Perhaps I didn't want to hear/understand it as I didn't want to believe it. I don't know what it is. Our marriage counselor (the new one, who is also my therapist) said that she should have taken it to the point of locking me in a room and talking/yelling until I understood. Clearly I understand now and want to work on it. I guess that's her part. Part of what also tears me up, is why should she have had to do that. She didn't, but she shouldn't have had to. Why didn't I know? The signs/messages were there. I see that now. Why didn't I see them back then.

So do I see how she was hurt and am I sorry. Absolutely. Do I feel like it's all my fault, at times I do but I know that's not entirely true. I guess one of the things to my own recovery is to forgive myself first.

That is not to say that I don't feel sorry for what her dad did to her or any of the pain she has suffered, however, she is not a forgiving person (as you said) and hangs onto the hurt/anger and does not let it go. When there has been trouble in a MR, there has to be forgiveness!

We had talked about forgiveness a while back, when we were still sleeping in the same bed. I had told her that I couldn't believe that the woman I love and not find it in her heart to forgive me. She said that she did forgive me but couldn't trust me with her heart again. The analogy she used if someone killed a loved one, she could forgive that person, but would never trust that person again. I was really taken back by her analogy, but I think that was how she felt. All the years with me, she felt that I killed a part of her. The part that was a loving spouse who gave me all her heart.

Even if she went back home, I bet she would whine and complain and carry on all the time about this same stuff that she is doing now. I don't see her letting it go and moving on with life! She may be depressed and probably has been for years.

Personally, IF (a BIG IF) she comes back, she wouldn't whine or complain, I think she would be constantly scared and walking on eggshells. The nite she moved into the spare bedroom, we had talked about letting go. I had told her that if she can't let go to give us another chance, I do lover her enough that I want her to let go so she would at least be able to have a chance to be happy and move on with her life.

I think she is depressed as well. Most people would be. She was a very sheltered person and really didn't know how to deal with all this pain and hurt that was, according to her, most of our marriage. She bottled it up and was afraid to say anything, worried that I would leave her. She didn't have enough confidence, nor did she realize how much I truly loved her. I can imagine that she is depressed as well as she doesn't want to wind up like her mother. Never moving on and waited over a decade for her husband to come back. She also saw how her mother took her Dad back a couple of times, only to be hurt again. I think that's why she is so hell bent on moving the divorce forward, as she doesn't want to be like her mother.

Where does that put you? You see, you are always talking about what she says or feels.....but what about YOU? How do you feel about a future with her.....honestly? I don't mean what you WISH would happen in the future, but knowing her like you do......where does it put you in the future? Would you really be happy with a person like her that is always brow-beating you about how unhappy you have made her....but she never does anything to help herself? What has she done in all of this to actually help herself? I see you going to the therapist and doing other things to try to change for the better, but what is she doing? All I see is her crying on your shoulder and telling you what a miserable life she has had. You are her scape goat! How will you ever have any self esteem yourself living with a person like her? She will keep you so pulled down that you can't see sunshine.

I don't want to believe this will be true, but it is something in the back of my mind. Will I be walking on eggshells around her for the rest of my life? Afraid that the slightest mistake will put her back into a tailspin? Do I want that for her? I don't think that she will pull me down, but I think I will do it to myself. I will be constantly monitoring, second guessing, etc. But that's the part of DB/DR where I need to work on myself so I can forgive myself and have confidence that I can/have learned from mistakes. And it will be ok to slip up, as long as I recognize and continue to grow and learn from them.

I do want her back because I see now how hard she has tried over the years while I took it all for granted as I thought everything was fine because I was happy. It was incredibly selfish of me. I knew there were things that she wasn't happy about, but just didn't know to the extent of how bad it was eating her up. I wound up trivalizing them in my mind as I didn't know how important they were to her.

I think that's part of getting of her that she's been dropping on me. I guess part of me is saying why didn't she tell me, but another part of me is why didn't I know. Wouldn't most "normal" people have known?

It may be the very thing for her to find out what she really wants to do with her life and who she wants to spend it with.

The sad part about it was that she had thought she wanted to spend it with me, but she said I took all her love and just threw it away while I chipped away her love for me by being so mean.

I do feel sad/pity for my wife and my boys. I feel sorry that my wife feels like her dreams of "happily ever after" have been crushed/stolen from her. I feel sorry for what my boys are going through. I am angry with myself for not getting it. I know that is all a bad combination, but I'm trying to work through all that with my therapist. Forgiving myself......