Most Likely Youngster Goes His Way (& W Goes Hers)

[westcoastfella]

A mature W might say "Honey, I accept that your OCD was the reason why you said those hurtful things to me, but I just really don't want to stay in this marriage because it's too painful for me". A mature W would NOT be deliberately rubbing your nose in her affair, etc.

I think this makes the difference between me and her. As painful as the things I said to her were, they were never said to deliberately hurt her -- always to quell the massive feelings of anxiety and guilt that I felt within me. (Which is selfish, as I should have thought more about how this was hurting her. I realize that now.)

I always ask for specifics but you did NOT say anything like this execept You were less sexually experienced than your w.

I went through this in full in my thread "Youngster's WAW Still Chooses OM!", toward the bottom of page 9 and the top of page 10. I think, at the time, you were helping out MadeToSucceed -- I remember following quite a few comments that you made on his thread.

and make no mistake, she was VERY hurt. So you either were doing it to make up for her having had sex earlier, including that rape too??? And OR you were so clueless and immature you didn't contain your insecurities and lashed out at the one person who was loving to you and had nothing to do with your prior lack of inexperience...

I feel like I'm being bashed here. If I had to pick either option here, it would be the second one. Yes, I was clueless and immature. I had never been in an R with ANYONE before, especially not one so serious -- I had no idea how hurtful many of my behaviors were. If I had been more of a man, would I have ditched this awful behavior away before it had even occurred? You bet. But the things I said were not designed to purposely break her down, which both of your options seem to suggest was my intent.

You said you were depressed and undereemployed or lost your job and you mentioned VAGUELY that you were inexperienced and had OCD

With the former, you're mixing me up with MadeToSucceed. Somewhere in his sitch, he mentioned getting a football injury, gaining a lot of weight, being depressed, and possibly having some concerns about the fact that his W made more money than he did. The latter is me.

Hey I have to concede I don't buy that your diagnosis for THIS behavior is all OCD...there's a deeper darker thing going on I hope to God you'll address....

I believe that it was OCD, or at least something very similar. I went through the DSM-IV and went through the checklist of symptoms for OCD behavior, and I made nearly all of them. (If you want to take a look, check out this link: OCD Criteria ) My behavior was marked by intense anxiety & fear, feelings of guilt and worthlessness, and feeling as though my mind did things beyond my control. It honestly felt very similar to drug addiction, only without the highs. Only lows.

OCD can be characterized by intrusive thoughts about things that offend the person who has it, including thoughts about religion or sexuality ("Do I hate God? / Am I sexually attracted to children? etc). My belief is that BECAUSE the thoughts are personally offensive, they cause so much anxiety. Hence, my W was so important to me that I wildly overreacted to any kind of thought that could tear our R apart. (If I had been a normal guy, I honestly would not have cared about such thoughts. I would have just not even acknowledged them. I was over the moon for my wife and loved being with her.)

with her past as a rape victim to boot, you two were a toxic mix for each other...hope you both heal

I think that here you are absolutely right. We both had terrible insecurities and our own respective mental traumas. We both need to heal from our traumas, as well as the effects that they had on our R together. I am currently seeing a C and am discussing all of this with her. I don't think my W is seeing a T/C, but I think that she should. She used to, anyway. (Her T at the time also remarked that I had "textbook OCD" when my W described my behavior to her.)

I still don't think that her A is justified, however. I understand that she was unhappy in our M and may have felt driven away from it -- I own my part of what made her unhappy. But she had other options available to her, and she chose the worst one. If she's truly happy in this current R, that's fine -- I want her to pursue what will make her happy. I have told her that I wish her the absolute best. But I refuse to let her keep me "in her back pocket," as you yourself said. I think you'd agree that her behavior there is not cool.

Thanks for your thoughts, labug and CO1978. I personally read "Brain Lock" by Jeffrey Schwartz and found it to be the book that worked for me the best.