Suppo: She's rewriting history....every walk away spouse does. And honestly because of the lens she's looking through right now she probably actually can't remember any of the good times in the entire marriage.
I'll share a brief story that happened a couple of weeks before we seperated....obviously I know now that by that point she had already mentally checked out but I didnt know it then. My S11 and I went to play golf and my wife rode along...we played 9 holes and he and I had a great time, but at some point on about the 3rd hole he kept getting 'too' upset about hitting bad shots and I told him not to be so hard on himself b/c he hasn't been playing that long.
Well after that he went completely the other way and wasn't even really trying to hit the ball correctly and when it went sideways he would just say 'oh well I haven't been playing that long so i'll get better' or something to that effect...that went on for about 2 holes and I told him very calmly that while he had too high expectations in the beginning, he couldnt let go of expectations completely b/c then he would never improve, he needed to find some balance.
So we finish 9 holes and end up on the range hitting some balls and my wife decides she would like to hit some so she grabs one of my clubs and is hitting them well and im being complimentary b/c i've always wanted her to play. Its starting to get dark and a good friend of mine shows up with his wife and kids.....he was there to check the tournament board b/c we were having a member guest that weekend....anyway this guy played in college and is still a 0 handicap so he starts helping both my wife and my son with their stance and swing and im just enjoying watching them hit. She's smiling....my sons having a blast.....so it gets almost dark and we've quit hitting balls and are simply all standing around talking when the superintendent comes by and says we may wanna move off of the range b/c he's about to turn the sprinklers on.
Well when the sprinklers come on my friends daughters all want to play in them, they're like 11, 10 and 8 so he said go ahead....well now my son takes off his socks and shoes and starts running in them as well and sliding on the ground....eventually I go out there with the kids and we run through the sprinklers for about 1/2 an hour laughing and having an incredible time....my son still talks about it.
Whew im finally to the point of the story. A month later my wife was talking about us never having fun and I say well what about at the golf course.......all she can remember from that day is that i told my son not to be so hard on himself and then when he quit being hard on himself i got on him again and said you can't just not care. And she said she couldnt wait for the 9 holes to be over b/c she could see he was hurting. She actually didnt remember anything about the range or the sprinklers or any of that, it was a rewrite of history through some incredibly gray filter she has.
My son remembers nothing about the golf part and everything about the sprinkler part....and obviously it wasn't bad for him b/c we played golf just last week and he's always wanting to go.
I know thats a long example, but it seemed to exemplify to me how they filter things when they get in that state of mind so of course she says there's never been anything good in 16 years....he!! she might not really remember anything good right now....its why we have to stay the course.
