1702, I'm sorry for your sitch. I suspect it's not easy for your WAW either. I read something once and put a sticky note on my laptop, because it so eloquently portrayed the perspective of the WAW. I wish I remembered where I got it so I could credit the author, but this is it:
Quote:
When a spouse walks away, it isn't usually a spur of the moment decision. The groundwork for her desire to be out of the relationship was laid bit by bit over many years.
She started out trusting you and believing in you. She started out knowing that you would love her and desire her presence in your life.
As the years went by and she found out time and again that what she believed was in fact not true...well...it changes people inside. She didn't wake up one morning and decide to go. She talked herself in to this being her only suitable response to life with you.
For me, it all boils down to selfishness on my H's part. I'm sure my story isn't unique. Years of communicating my issues, his promising to address them and then breaking his promises, and then accusing me of nagging because it continued to be a problem for me. At this point, I just feel like I have tried it all, multiple times with no success.
What I see in my sitch with my H is that our M is good for him, so he doesn't understand how painful it is for me. It's like telling someone you have a migraine who has never had a migraine. They think "headache." But anyone who has had both knows the difference. It isn't until the spouse leaves that the LBS begins to actually feel some of what the WAS felt for a long time. Only then are they miserable, and the WAS is looking like they're fine, because they've had a long time to get over it already. You're experiencing the same thing your WAW has probably felt for some time, just on a different timeline. You pulled the band-aide off her hair-by-hair, while she pulled it off you in one swift yank.
Are you posting to other forums? The DB'ing principles do work for many people. Not all, but it could be worth your trying it. I don't know your sitch. I guess I would just suggest to you that you spend some serious energy thinking back on the things she said to you in the past. My H will still tell you he doesn't have a clue what I need from him, yet at the same time would tell you all I do is nag. He doesn't seem to have the capacity to connect the dots (even though I've connected them for him) but you need to if you want to know where things went wrong in your R.
