I'm responding here to your initial post on this thread. Thank you for coming here and posting your experience and your thoughts and feelings. I wish that my wife had come to me at some point and said, specifically, that she would 'leave' if things didn't improve. She never did. She did work very hard and put up with so much ridiculous stuff from me though, and she tried to get me to go to marriage counseling, and she tried to get me to go to church, and she tried everything else she could...and I was so full of anger and resentment that I stubbornly refused. I was absolutely shocked and devestated when she said she was leaving. I look back on my behavior and my thoughts and feelings, and I am so ashamed. I was flat-out wrong. I wish that she hadn't left, but I understand her feeling that she had to. I have grown and learned so much since then. I am a better person, a better father, and a better partner (for her, or for someone else). It hurts bad that she's not here. I have much regret and remorse. I see things so differently now, and I feel so differently now...I'm about a million miles away from being the way that I used to be. Will I ever get another chance with her...I don't know! I certainly hope so. One of the biggest things for me has been to learn to have compassion...compassion for myself, and compassion for others. I do genuinely love her, and I want to meet her needs, and have a loving, compassionate relationship with her... I respect and value her as a partner for life.
She has a ton of anger and resentment built up from over the years...understandably.
"Always go straight forward, and if you meet the devil, cut him in two and go between the pieces." - William Sturgis, clipper ship captain, 1830's.
