Hey Alk, glad things went well for you and you're feeling strong and confident.
Again I'm going to add a woman's viewpoint and can say that I get CV's point. Especially if you look at it in terms of your whole marriage, not just since the affair. She probably has been looking for someone to be the knight on the white charger and didn't find it at home. There's a reason why ad campaigns for women have those shirtless men on horseback, it appeals to a part of the female brain in enough women that companies spend money on it. This is not a fantasy of being dragged to a castle and ravished it's about respect, someone who will stand up for you, someone who has your back, someone who does special things for you, someone who is completely focused an listening, at least some of the time, on you.
I'm not suggesting you spend the day obsessing about this because what's done is done and hopefully you've done your work to know where you went wrong and what you would do differently in your next R, no matter who it's with.
I'm also not condoning your W's choice to go outside the marriage, but all behavior has meaning and those who don't learn from the past are destined to repeat it. And sometimes a different viewpoint can be helpful.
Oh I completely agree with CV and your point, and it's certainly something I will continue to work on.
W is right that I DIDN'T fight for her enough during the happy times of our M... I decided to let her fight her own fights, as she was a very strong and independent person. I'm learning to balance fighting for someone and letting them fight their own battles.
But I did, which she admits even by her now-warped logic, make her feel like the center of the universe. She knew that I'd do anything for her, I constantly told her I loved her, complimented her and tried to do little things to show her how much she meant to me... But in the end, I kept doing THOSE things to try to fix any issues that we had... I thought that by being sweeter, by complimenting her more, by doing more little things, that I could just make her unhappiness disappear.
Clearly I couldn't and that's not how these things work. In this and ANY R, two-way communication is essential to dealing with issues...
I wasn't very good at hearing things that upset me... I would get overly hurt by little things and truly conditioned my W to not bring them up as she didn't want to see me get all heartbroken over something... And these things piled up and up and up until they had nowhere to go...
I'm not making excuses for my W's behavior, I'm just taking responsibility for my part in it...
And I completely understand your perspective LA, and yours CV.
And my heart wants nothing more than to mount my steed and sweep W off her feet again... To slay the mighty OM dragon and ride off into the sunset with her...
But now is not the time for that. Yesterday, I showed her how shiny my armor has become. I showed her how well kept my horse is. I showed her that my sword is sharp and my nobility is in tact.
Now it's up to her to take the steps that would get me back on the horse and riding in her direction.
