...and then I heard the MLC phrase of "too little, too late". Over the months he has actually used what I had to say against me. Every time I don't react to something the way he wants me to, he says "See? You haven't changed at all....you're still the same old person you always were."
I apologized to my H in a very generic way, very brief and nothing too emotional - I'm sorry you feel I controlled you, I'm sorry for the part I played in our M being bad. You know it was mostly good, and you know we were really good together. (He didn't receive that well, but my hopes are that he will remember that feeling later of it being good.)
I did not get into heartfelt emotions for the very reason above. They are vindictive and hurtful in this journey, they are looking for reasons why they were right to leave you, and they are not the man/woman you M. They are in a fog, don't remember to brush their teeth, they're certainly not going to remember what you said to them in a long, heartfelt apology, except blah, blah, blah, you were right, it's all my fault, blah, blah, you were right to leave me, blah blah, you're perfect and it's all my fault... etc.
Not trying to make it sound ridiculous, but it sort of is, in their weird, warped sense of reality. If you are going to apologize, keep it straight, simple, and generic, do it so that you have peace of mind and expect it to be twisted to suit his needs. If it were me, I'd wait until he is acting like himself in a few years before I did anything... but then again, you can always give him the apology in bits and pieces, in the form of validations...
ex. "W, it's all your fault, you were too controlling" - "I understand that you think I was controlling and I'm sorry you feel that way." "W, you never made me the center of your universe" "H, I'm sorry you feel that way, and you know that true happiness comes from within, I hope you find that some day." etc.
As an aside, I also confronted OW and instead of sticking to the script "you're hurting my family, please stay away" I filled her in on some stuff about H and his past A's and they used it against me... that I'm crazy, I have a low self esteem, no wonder H doesn't want to be with me... don't do that either. It was all the truth, but she didn't want to hear it, she wanted to believe H is wonderful, totally in love with her, b/c she's just so wonderful also, and I'm a louse sitting at home ruining his life.
