How can WAS put themselves before their children?

[Dia]

Not related to the children thing, but in general...

As long as I was blaming my H for the bulk of the problems in our M, I was blind to any issues in myself that needed fixing. I mean, yeah, they were there, but why should *I* have to go first? It seemed like all I ever did in our M was go first. Dangitall, I wanted HIM to go first with fixing something for a change.

Guess what? Maybe he 'should' have gone first, but shoulds didn't get me anywhere but closer to divorce.

Once I stopped blaming my H, there was this ongoing string of realizations.

"Crap - I screwed *that* up."

"Double crap - I did this other bit wrong, too."

And so on.

So I started working on me. And in particular, working on being someone I could forgive for her failings. And lo and behold, once I had forgiven me, I found I had forgiven him, too.

Where I'm really going with this is about blame, tho.

The more energy you put into blaming your WAS, the longer you'll be blind to anything on your side that might be standing in the way of progress.

Please note that I am not defending WAS. What I am saying is that for a whole lot of WAS, there were valid reasons why they left. If you want the WAS to come back, eliminate any valid reasons for their departure.

Edit: Oh yeah. And what am I doing now in trying to get my H back? Going first. I think it's 25mlc who has a quote in her sig that reads, "I'd rather be happy than right."