I guess the question remains... do you feel you have shown your W you love and care for her at the expense of loving and caring for yourself? I kind of think you have.
What concerns me a great deal is how you cling to any tiny bit of good and in turn it raises your expectations to an almost unstoppable level. Yet, when you get filled with rage (EX: OM and the bowling during the holidays) you quickly forget the absolute disrespect your W showed you.
And sure, we can't hold on to anger forever or we will live in misery for the rest of our days. You want us to cheer right along with you when your W gives you a shred of attention or decency yet you get angry when we point out how poorly she treats you as a man, husband and co-parent. I have asked you this several times, what is it you want? Only to cheer on the good and let all the negatives be dormant?
I think we all can relate to not being able to view our own personal situations with clarity. And you are correct, we don't have a front row seat to every exchange you have with your W. We can only respond/converse based on what you share. However much of the "good" you post seems a bit far fetched to me.
Sure, you might respect your W's boundaries but as you relay it to us, she rarely respects yours when you do set one.
Most of your goals/changes all have to do with how you can look better to your W. Do you like what you see when you look in the mirror? It's not an easy question to answer, I know. Sometimes when I look in the mirror I am stunned to see how sad my eyes look. It almost takes my breath away. It's painful motivation at it's finest.
There have been posts you made that really have worried me. You sound almost suicidal or so very, very clinically depressed that I wonder why you choose to function that way. There was a post you made around the holidays that frightened me. You sounded so sad and so alone and so lost. And every few weeks I see a post like that from you. And it makes my heart hurt because I know how I felt at my very worst.
You are going to do what you want and surround yourself with people that support your stance. We all need that I guess. But it seems to me you really rebuke any advice/experience from people who have walked what appears to be a much harder road than you have simply because it is very uncomfortable.
