Grace, Love, Compassion, and Faith

[Telemark]

"However at the same time, it is the same. My w ran when things got hard. When she didn't want to deal with me or m, she didn't. When she didn't feel like she was worthy to be in people's lives, she didn't make the effort. I don't know what her reasons are now.. I guess it doesn't matter.

Sometimes when I talk about all of this stuff.. I think "no wonder she feels like we can't change our dynamic. We were so unhealthy together in a lot of ways.. no wonder she doesn't want to work on the m or have me in her life. It would mean a sh!tload of work".

This. Right here. You have nailed what I think is true for so many couples. I read this and thought, "That's us."

Why do so many marriages fail, yet we all know at least 1 couple who make it look so effortless; couples who have been married 30, 40, 50 years...

Trust and honesty, I suppose. My W used to say she didn't feel safe with me...she meant she could not feel safe opening up to me. Like your W, it was easier for my W to just not put the effort into breaking that barrier, which would frustrate me, which would cause her to shut down even more and on and on and on...

any chance posted a question in his thread asking when I (or anyone) knew it was time to say "Enough. I'm done." To paraphrase my reply, I said that when I tried to picture us reconciled, I saw a marriage of suspicion and convenience. I thought it would be too easy for us to slip back into our co-dependent ways, regardless of how much work I had successfully done on myself, because my W has not and will not look inside herself and try to take out the garbage.

I guess what I'm saying, V, is that if you step back from where you are right now and take an honest, cold, realistic look at where you would be with your W if you reconciled, you might come to the same conclusions.