#2: WAH separated from us & I'm on the DBing path

[flowmom]

I was rereading the same book last night flo. Weird huh?

<nodding>

You are still at the phase that you are hard on yourself.

I don't think I'm being hard on myself when I admit my wrongs. There have been reasons and excuses for my wrongs, but that doesn't make it OK.

But listen, the same book has a list of things the H deos to his W to provoke fear for her. Did you read that? How does H fit with that?

He definitely contributed heavily to my feeling of being alone and shut out. I'm not trying to protect him from his own part in this, but his part isn't my department, my department is my own part.

Learn from your mistakes but dont take 100% of the weight of the relationship on your shoulders.

I don't and wouldn't. I'm just trying to take inventory right now. I think that communicating to H that I take full ownership for what I did wrong and apologizing for that could be part of moving on with my life. Really, the last times that we talked about our R were at Xmas, when I was in full-blown shock/panic/desperation mode and neither of us were in our right mind, and in MC, where things were left with me being cast in the light of someone who was trying hard and doing her best and H was the one who had to shift. Both of those are true, but there really wasn't enough ownership of my issues in MC, and a belief on anyone's part that I could change those things. My hurt and the stress that we've been under put me in a defensive mode. I think that owning my issues and truly acknowledging my part in H's pain would be a 180 for me, and I'm sorry that it's taken me the separation to truly look at this.

Plus, his hours at work, I THOUGHT, didnt allow him time to cheat and have a relationship with someone.

Yeah, I've thought that too. But H has had so much freedom in our M (I don't typically ask him about where he's been, who he's seen, etc.) that encounters would have been easy.

Be alert and keep your eyes open.

My eyes are open, but I have so little access to his life that realistically I would have to hire a PI, unless he starts shoving it in my face because he wants me to know.

I made the decision to specifically discuss and own my part in our problems and my issues I needed to address to my H. I bought many books about it and started IC months before he even considered it for himself and I'm still going today. I have made great progress, but still he resists formally working on R or MC. He will only do separate IC and occasionally informally discuss issues when he feels he can handle it.

Has it helped you to inventory and apologize to your H for your part in the M problems?