My story, need help before I mess everything up.

[MrBond]

Going back to your earlier post shows that even after all of your "reading" you still don't understand your W.

"she got hit on last night by a very drunk bloke and had to be rescued by one of her friends, but she said she thought it was best she told me.

Anyway I got visably upset/angry about this"

She was respectful enough of you to tell you this. To open herself up to you and you got mad. You were tested and failed.

"I'm not convinced I am selfish in the whole scheme of things infact scratch that, I wasn't selfish in our M. "

Hmmm didn't you just say this in an earlier post?....

"I've been negative and critical, unsupportive, neglected her, being withdrawn and just thought that paying the bills and putting food on the table was enough for a H."

Sounds pretty selfish to me.

You seem to talk about yourself alot. About YOUR feelings and how much work YOU've done. But you still haven't scratched the surface of what got you here...what YOUR WIFE feels. Learn and be compassionate and understanding about how she feels and you'll actually start learning.

[Denton]

Wow that was fast. You have already revised things in the m....(like your w?) Stop it. You won't grow. You keep using that scorecard to make yourself feel better b/c maybe MAYBE the ugly truth is,

you could have done a lot BETTER as a h, and that is the barometer, not "could have been worse" .

With what I know now I definetly could of done a LOT better, I feel I gave it my best, with hindsight there are a million changes I would of done even if I didn't have these new tools I absolutely agree I could of done a lot better as a H.

One of her complaints was that we always did what I wanted to do which

[color:#CC0000]^^^sounds selfish...come on, you know it.
Just b/c she didn't fight you doesn't mean you knew it wasn't you getting your way. And when she did make an issue of it you SAY she "always got her way" but that tells me there's resentment on your end so she probably did NOT tell you how she felt very often..not worth the cost of your pouting...

You've hit the nail on the head there, I can completely see thats whats happened, I didn't conciously be selfish but the end result is still the same to her.

I sense eagerness to grow on your part, mixed heavily with innate immaturity and anger. Lose the scorecard, please!

If possible can you expand further on the immaturity - I'm not disagreeing! what does maturity look like in this situation?

Newsflash...she has her own scorecard and you are NOT ahead...
so how does it help you to keep using your point of view/scorecard? Answer...it does not.

I've just quoted this just to remind myself.

and btw, you really are revising things b/c I read your whole thread. Truth can hurt but that doesn't mean you keep running from or denying it. You'll hurt MORE by doing that than by facing it.

I really can't see how I've revised things, I've read through the thread again myself and can't see it? I'm not scared of the truth, I've faced a lot already in the last few months that have been very painful, I sometimes really struggle to see the truth, as in the me being selfish example above.

Why would we talk about your perfect qualities HERE? Your m is in peril. Your w wants out. YOU have to show her that marriage to YOU can be better and different than before.

how are YOU doing that?

180s, being kinder, more supportive what I can do while living seperetly and what I would of done before this mess if I'd realised it.

irrelevant scorekeeping...Learn empathy. See things from HER perspective ASAP or you'll get nowhere.

In a seperate post later I will put down what I've learnt from her.


She is trying a bit

then be grateful!! Stop adding your expectations..learn some dang patience.

Really really trying to!

Don't confuse self respect with your wounded ego, anger or pride. Those things are not helpful in this situation.

Quoted just to remind me.


Thanks for replying again I really value your challenging questions.

[Denton]

Going back to your earlier post shows that even after all of your "reading" you still don't understand your W.

"she got hit on last night by a very drunk bloke and had to be rescued by one of her friends, but she said she thought it was best she told me.

Anyway I got visably upset/angry about this"

She was respectful enough of you to tell you this. To open herself up to you and you got mad. You were tested and failed.

You could be absolutely right about this, the other reason that I came up with was she said it to test wether I'm still interested in her.

Sounds pretty selfish to me.

I see it now with your and 25MLCs help. Thankyou.

You seem to talk about yourself alot. About YOUR feelings and how much work YOU've done. But you still haven't scratched the surface of what got you here...what YOUR WIFE feels. Learn and be compassionate and understanding about how she feels and you'll actually start learning.

Will post in a seperate post what I know her feelings are.

Thanks for your help, you are blunt and I appreciate it.

[MrBond]

"the other reason that I came up with..."

All that is mindreading. You don't know what your W is thinking from one moment and the next so it doesn't do any good analyzing everything. I know it's very natural to do, but it doesn't do any good.

Instead, how about just living. Just be with her when you can. Just understand her and support her. Women want someone whom they feel safe enough with to open up to.

"what I know her feelings are."

Right now between your W's state of mind and you trying to figure things out, neither of you seem to know what her feelings are. When you start overthinking everything, you jump right back on that rollercoaster. And when she acts in a way you didn't expect, you get anxious. No sense in analyzing nonsense.

[Denton]

"what I know her feelings are."

Right now between your W's state of mind and you trying to figure things out, neither of you seem to know what her feelings are.

Thank goodness somebody feels her 'state of mind' isn't 100%. I've been getting the impression that I was completely in the wrong over everything, I know ultimately wether her thoughts are based on genuine facts and accurate history or exaggerated and inaccurate in places her thoughts are her thoughts and ARE REAL TO HER. This is what I've really struggled with especially for the first month I was trying to convince her that she only thinks that way because of the EA. Which maybe true but to HER they are true and accurate facts. I struggle with everything that she says because of all the lies, exaggerations and I suppose that means I've struggled to emphasise with what are sometimes lies and exaggerations to me.

It's the stuff which is in our ancient history that I've struggled with, stuff shes bought up out of the blue from 15 - 18 years ago which she has NEVER bought up before and other things that shes never said about over the years all suddenly appearing at once.

[Denton]

I want to show you guys that I am looking at what my W has complained about. I am struggling to emphasise with some stuff as explained in my previous post, for some of these things I can see a pattern which is the stuff I've taken really seriously.

What I did originally was take the letter she wrote to me that she was taking to MC to show the MC all the bad stuff I've done to her, she originally said that these are the reasons she had no feelings for me anymore which came up in our chats after I moved out the first time so it was while the EA was going on. With the letter which gave specific examples of how I've hurt her over the years I took each example and looked at the emotions and feelings that she was saying behind the words. And the main ones are...

Unloved , unappreciated, hurt, uncared for, disrespected, unwanted and anger(hers).

Interestingly in the letter was no mention of what I see as the biggest problem from her POV in our R for at least the last 9 or so years which is my stress and anger and is one of the few things she has complained about verbally since the letter. A lot of the examples she gave me in the letter I went through everything from my POV (this was 2 months ago) I apologised for every single example though. I can now completely see the disrepect throughout the R , I can see that she would feel unloved and uncared for if I wasn't speaking her LL which also would would explain why she felt unappreciated as words of affirmation is her 2nd LL.

[MrBond]

"was no mention of what I see as the biggest problem from her POV in our R for at least the last 9 or so years which is my stress and anger"

She did mention it. You just don't know how to read it.
You would get mad and she felt this...
"Unloved , unappreciated, hurt, uncared for, disrespected, unwanted "

[25yearsmlc]

Bingo to what Bond said...

how she felt when you showed anger, was what she described. "Unloved, neglected, etc"

There is a connection between your behaviors and her emotional responses...

Sidenote--it's important (and sometimes difficult) to realize no two people see things the same way. That includes their marital history.

This took me a long time to accept. I kept feeling that h didn't see things accuarately or that he overlooked his own failings...and the impact of his unilateral choices.

Then I felt it was crucial that WE both see our marital history the same way. Yet I knew in the back of my mind, that two "innocent" w's could see an accident very differently.

So of course each of us could see our past through the lens with which we view the world...

what really matters in the end, is how you see the future together.

Agreeing on today's events...expectations being clarified & negotiated, matters a lot more than seeing the past identically (which btw is probably impossible. And a waste of time and energy).

It's tough to believe and accept but I really believe it.

When I say maturity, I mean learn impulse control and control your temper,

and learn empathy....

that means seeing her point of view from her point of view.


w/o suggesting that she's too emotional or unstable (ie wrong)

which takes the focus off of you

and you are the focus b/c you are posting here. Not her.

Besides, the more you make this about her, the more powerLESS you are.

The more you make it about your behaviors in the marriage, the more empowered you are. Do you see that? It's actually good news. You CAN do something about all this.

When I say you revise things it's b/c you admitted that you were (what Bond said earlier-from your thread) "negative, critical"

and later you mentioned your temper and stress - which I think is clearly impacting everyone in the family.

You MAY benefit from meds or therapy for anger management...

so when you say later on, that you were "not selfish in the m" and that you can say all of your negative traits also belong to HER

I don't buy it. At least not most of it. I think you're in a lot of pain and taking some responsibility for getting here, can be too painful at times.

So our memories cloud. Sometimes it's so hard to reconcile our self image with our recently discovered flaws, that we stop remembering our backslides and our mistakes and flaws. But we have to.

[Denton]

WOW 25, I think those are the wisest words anybody has ever said to me, thankyou so much. It is really clear and have spent all day digesting it and really thinking about it.

I think you're in a lot of pain and taking some responsibility for getting here, can be too painful at times.

I'm in a heck of lot of pain, I've never known anything like it in my life and could never imagine the strength of some of my emotions at times.

I do believe I'm taking responsibility, there are some things I've really struggled to see and with your help and Mr Bonds I'm seeing more and more each day.



OK so another thing came to me last night that I'm guilty of and I've realised now has been going on for years, it's kind of hard to explain and haven't told my W about this and don't intend to but I keep blaming my subconcious for things. Eg. The selfishness it wasn't me it was my subconcious, I didn't deliberetly mean to be selfish!. Is this normal? (or fairly normal?) I can see why I would do it to avoid taking responsibility for my actions and behaviours. But also I didn't conciously set out to be selfish in our M, I didn't wake up one day and think I know, I'll be really selfish today.
Am I over analysing myself now? Or am I actually making progress in my journey of self discovery?

Now I'm aware of it, to fix this I guess is being concious of my actions and behaviours and question myself as to wether I'm being selfish or not and reflect on how my actions and behaviours effect other people. I guess from bringing selfishness out from my subconcious into my concious mind I automatically start working on it because I don't want to be selfish, I've never thought of myself as selfish in the past and I believe it is not a good behaviour to have.

I'm sure there are many other things in my subconcious similar to being selfish but used selfish as an example since it's been debated a lot on here.

[Denton]

Hi, bit of an update, I haven't posted for a few days as I've been reading lots and nothing has really happened.

Our Sunday night chat about our R happened as usual last night and it didn't go particularly well. I didn't get angry but I did get a bit upset and frustrated however I mostly hid that using excuses to leave the room.

The main sticking point that I feel is stopping us making progress is about the morning in mid December where I gave her the ultimatum of me or Nick. I really did shout at her and is the only time in my life that I remember ever shouting at her, she said last night that it made her scared and she also said last night about it upsetting the kids, however she said it was nothing to do with the ultimatum. The other part of that morning was I demanded her phone of her so I could check for more text, this has also severly annoyed her and she said "what gives you the right to demand my phone off me or demand anything for that matter?" I replied with there were extenuating circumstances and I've never demanded anything off her before and in a marriage in very rare circumstances it is alright to demand something and that works both ways. I've said to her previously that I was sorry for shouting at her and I was sorry for making her feel scared and if I could go back I would of handled the situation differently but I was so messed up then in the head I really didn't know what I was doing half the time.

I don't know how to move on from that, that happened over 2 months ago and she is still mightly angry about it and sometimes it feels likes shes more angry. I said to her last night that I felt she was being unreasonable about it, because I from the beginning have been trying to forgive her EA and took no notice of her threats to kill me (that was said on that morning and I never took it seriously). She obviously disagreed with that and I don't know if I should of said that or not as I really am trying to empathise with her which is why I apologised before but I can't see (and I really have tried to see) why shes still angry 2 months later and shows no sign of calming down, it feels like shes hanging on to it for all shes got but for what reason I'm not sure.

The other thing I asked her is if she felt the same way about her 'friendship' with Nick yet, she said she saw it as just good close friends and thats it. So basically shes still minimising it and just can't see it for what it was.

I do believe shes feeling incredibly guilty about the whole thing and shes really struggling with the guilt as she has admitted to me more than that before and she admitted that she stopped texting him in that way because it was wrong.

I've also been reading up about affairs/mid life crisis and how 1 Spouse basically demonises their partner and can only see all the bad things they've done and none of the good things. I feel very strongly this has happened here, I'm not saying I've been perfect and every thing that she has said I am working on but how do I get through this when there is no recognition of the good times, empathy towards me, good will on her part and no attempt at any kind of forgiveness?

The other thing she said last night was about me being controlling - she actually came up with an example for the first time (apart from the demanding the phone thing- which I know and agree was controlling) which was that she always felt like she had to ask permission to go out. I said I've never asked her to ask permission before and I've always took it as common courtesy when she asks, just like I asked her permission if I wanted to go out but according to her because I made her feel that way I was controlling. I see what shes saying and I told her that but I always saw it as politeness.

She seems to be in a very negative mindset at the moment about me and her work and I guess life in general, shes mostly stopped trying to be independent so much and has calmed down from that, it feels like she is slipping deeper into depression.