thoughts about WAS

[Dia]

Hmmm, the 'it's mostly the WAS' fault' doesn't jive with my sitch either, not even the 'it's all about the WAS' part.

I've used the coffee example before for a measure of how bad things had gotten, but I'll repeat it here with an extra bit.

For the vast majority of our marriage, H hated dark roast coffee. He wanted a mild, medium roast and not too strong either. I'm the one one who made the coffee about 90% of the time, and I love a rich, strong dark roast. He griped and complained if I bought dark roast, so I always bought what he wanted and made it his way. When I've mentioned the coffee before, it's been to say that when you're down to resentment squabbles over friggen coffee, things are already BAD.

Well, near the end, I was tired of never being able to drink the coffee *I* like. So I bought, made and enjoyed a good dark roast from Seattle's Best. And I got the gripey lecture about how he hates that kind of coffee, I was so selfish and it was all about me.

Would someone explain how, if he gets to drink his preferred coffee 364 days out of the year, it could be all about me? Kinda sounds like it's more about *him*.

And how is it that wanting my kind of coffee once in awhile makes me selfish? Why does he get the only vote on the coffee, and why does it become so personal so fast if I like something a little different? And just who is the controlling one here?

When H and I separated, I thought it was mostly his fault. Not all, but mostly.

Now I know that I was wrong.

I can't assign portions of fault in our sitch, not even to say that it was 50-50. I don't think blame or fault can even be quantified like that. We BOTH caused the problem. Evenly, fluidly and enmeshedly (if that's a word). In our sitch at least, I don't think assigning blame in portions or otherwise is realistic or helpful. As long as either one of us is blaming the other AT ALL, we're not fixing things, we're not loving each other, we're not taking responsibility for our own side of the mess and we're not moving forward.

To say, "this hurt me," is not blame. To say, "I was wrong when I did X," is not blame. I've found it FAR more helpful to take responsibility for my own sh*%, to understand and forgive, and to express my feelings (this hurts me) than to express blame or even to worry or think about blame.

Edit: Perhaps I am reading more into the comments here than people intended re: who contributes 'most' to the problem. If so, I apologize. Thing is, I still think that analyzing the issue of 'most' is not productive - at least not in my sitch.