WAW, not sure how to proceed...

[NTX_Dad]

Last night my wife told me that she found a piece of paper in her drawer that had apparently been there for a couple of years. It was something she had written in therapy, listing many (although probably not all) of the things she was unhappy about in our relationship. I asked her if I could see it. It was pretty brutal...but nothing that I could argue with. Everything she had written was the truth.

It boggled my mind to think that for the past few years there's been a piece of paper with such important information on it sitting in a drawer just a few feet away from me. Why didn't her therapist ever tell her to share that info with me?!?! When I asked my wife why she herself never chose to share it with me, she said she was afraid I would leave her! I told her that as much as it hurt to read those things all assembled in one place, it was the type of information that one person NEEDS to share with the other when they're in a committed relationship. I also told her that I hoped she saw that all of those things she had written were things that I was turning around on my own, without her ever having shared them with me. She said she did see that, but that she is so angry at herself for not having honored her feelings and told me about them, and angry at me--as unfair as it may be since she didn't share her feelings with me--for not just being a person who she wouldn't have to write those things about in the first place.

I am dealing with an extremely angry person. I think I'm only beginning to understand/appreciate the anger. In fact, it worries me. It seems like the type of anger that...just might not dissipate to a degree that would be required for her to get past her pain and resentment and open up to working on us.

Again, this sounds exactly like my situation.

My wife is angry for holding onto past conflicts for so long. Our therapist said there's a chance she may never be able to let them go.

It's hard for me to imagine. It seems like forgiveness is a choice. For both of our wives' sake, I hope they can learn to forgive, or they will be in their "jail" forever.