I just wanted to take the time today to reflect on things that I could have done differently in my R with my W. It's easy during this time to get indignant and find myself in a "she's-all-wrong-and-I'm-all-right" mode. True, she should not have tried to resolve our problems and her unhappiness with an A. At the same time, I have spent these last few months reflecting on things I could have done better.
--The first year of our R, I was a total mess. I had never been in an R with anyone before (took me 18 years!) because of various issues with social awkwardness and a troubled upbringing (alcoholic household, etc.) You could say that I sort of lived in my own kind of world before meeting her. In many ways, I no longer recognize this version of myself at all.
During the first year, I made all sorts of terrible mistakes. I actively lied to her a lot because I wanted to cover up unlikable behavior. There were times that I questioned my attraction to her because I had developed a type of girl who I thought that I wanted. In terms of tastes, I pictured someone who was "alternative," into indie movies and obscure music, that kind of thing. In terms of body type, I always pictured a girl with very large breasts and a skinny frame. My W had a "thicker" frame than I originally wanted with slightly smaller breasts than the kind I pictured. During this time, I developed these weird obsessions about impressing two different women; one on campus who I had never met before, the other being one of my W's closest friends. The first one met the "tastes" schema and the second one fit both.
In addition, I also (hate to say this but I have to) pleasured myself while thinking about multiple women, including my W's friend and some other girls that I had gone to high school with. At the time, I felt that this was normal behavior. I'm still not really sure about it because I have heard of men doing this but just not telling their W's or GF's. In any case, I told my W about all of this because I felt very guilty later on, and she was very hurt and angry. She felt that these things were like A's and did not forgive me for any of this for several years. In fact, in the last couple of years, she would still throw the thing about her friend in my face just to push my buttons, even though she knew that I wanted nothing to do with her or no longer wanted to think about her in any context.
--After a year or so, I developed my special form of OCD. Essentially, it revolved around anything that I thought might upset my W. Usually this concerned thoughts that I had about other women (would I find this woman more attractive than my W if I had never met my W? etc.) or thoughts about my W's own body (did I not like the way this body part looked at this moment? etc.) I also had a lot of thoughts about my W's friend because I had felt so guilty about my obsession with her. These thoughts caused massive anxiety in me.
I would spend hours trying to figure out the answers to these "questions," then often would feel that confessing them to my W was the only option to relieve the pressure. This made it so that I slowly brought down my W's self-esteem just to relieve the anxiety that I felt. At first, she didn't care about the thoughts, but she said that after a while, she believed them to be real because I couldn't stop thinking them. She always told me that the simple answer to all of this would be to stop analyzing my thoughts and just let them pass unanswered, but the anxiety also felt too great. This was selfish of me. I later got much better about all of this in our M, but the damage had already been done.
Much of her attraction to OM is rooted in the "positive mirroring" that he gives to her. She has said that he makes her feel like "the only girl in the world." (Probably because he's a player and knows how to puff up a woman's self-esteem.) It was also based on the idea that she felt he always spoke the truth about everything. (As we know, this later turned out not to be the case, but she's still with him, so go figure on that one.)
--I was not much of a "man" in our R. I was a pleaser. I don't think I've ever stood up to my W and refused to back down. I began to feel as though I were being selfish and awful if I was not pleasing her in every way. If she disagreed with me, she would guilt-trip me, cry, get angry, or reason with me until I eventually recanted my stance.
I realize looking back that there were times when my W would indirectly try to make me stand up to her or other people in our life, but I was too scared and too people-pleasing to do it. After some years of this, I think that she just lost respect for me. Hence, my recent desire to stop being a "friend" to her A. I just won't do it anymore.
--Many, many times, when my W would express dissatisfaction with something I did, I would get defensive, try to deflect the blame onto her or away from me, explain away why I shouldn't be to blame, or just get moody and pout. Often, my W explained that all she wanted was an apology for making her feel bad. I never got this. I always felt as though I was being attacked and had to attack in kind. Not a good way to go.
So there we go. There were various problems here and there other than this, but these were the main rifts. I have realized looking back that there was much that I did that weakened our M. Whether I get back together with my W or move onto someone new, I have learned the hard way to do better than what I have done. I really do want to change these things about myself, and I will.
