How do I act?

[Surviving03]

wow... hindsight is 20/20..... I was hanging out with married couple tonight and they argue ALL the time and they both seem so miserable and they both complain to their friends about the other one and how he/she does this all the time or he/she doesnt do this and it drives me crazy, etc.... and I was just listening and observing and thinking back to my own fights with my H, and how it probably looked from the outside looking in. When in argument, you dont see what YOU are doing wrong, only what the other person is doing. You dont see that what you are yelling about seems ridiculous to someone observing, and i sat there and analyzed how each person could be handling the situation better..... WHY COULDNT I SEE THIS BEFORE MY H DECIDED HE HAD ENOUGH?? Man! I am a very self-aware person, and I can admit my faults and I now know what they in fact were..... of course he wasnt happy with how things were, neither was I.... I just never got to the point where i was fed up enough that i wanted out. Unfortunately, he did. And im pretty certain that the begging and pleading and reasoning that I did do when my husband first told me, I didnt make it clear to him that i DO in fact understand what he was feeling and why he was feeling that way. NOW I KNOW! I am so tempted to write him an email explaining this revelation that I had... but Im sure thats not what im supposed to do.

I see now why 50% of M end in D... and why 50% of those never should have. When someone tells you "marriage is work" they mean, its not always going to be the rainbows and butterflys and "in love" euphoria that it seems at first... and once you get to your lowest point... the WORK begins... unfortunately, thats where it goes wrong for people. Either one or both people are not willing to do the work, or one or both people dont know how to do the work. They dont discover the tools necessary to make the marriage work.... well.... tools... here I am! Bring it on!! I KNOW what I need to do.... I need to learn to choose my battles, I need to learn how to convey to my spouse that I do trust him, I need to learn how to approach a topic without being overbearing and disrespectful of his feelings about the topic.... I need to allow him to be more of himself, make decisions for himself and not try to control everything. I need to remember that loving him means loving HIM and allowing him to be just that.......

Geez!!! If only I could get him to see.... I GET IT!