New to DB and Clearly Oblivious to My "Horrible" M

[keep_going]

Nick,

I just want to stop by and show some support. After reading about your exchange with your W and Sandy2's comments, I can tell you that my H and I had a lot of the same type of conversations when he left and was trying to justify doing so, so you are not alone in this.

Sandi2 - thanks for your comments to Nick - even after all this time, I had actually believed a lot of things he said to me and just reading your post now has made me realize that perhaps I was not as crazy as I thought. Specially re. the following:

Typical. This is as good as the WAW using the excuse, "I was about to reconsider leaving--but now you've really messed up and now I know it can never work out". That one of the more popular things they can say.

My H did this ^^^^ twice to me and it has probably been the most devastating thing he has said to me in all of this (in addition to saying that I will never change.) It happened at the end of a bad argument. Up until that point, he had never indicated that there was any hope and I had been trying so hard to change and prove to him that our R could be different. So when he said it I felt like with my arguing, I had just blown my chances and re-set things back to zero. I blamed myself for so long and could just not forgive myself for "blowing" it.

H has told me several times since then that he has never had doubts about leaving. So I thought either he was lying or I was going crazy because of the whole "about to reconsider" comments. Now I know it was all just script and that probably he is actually being honest about never really reconsidering, but was just building his case or alleviating his guilt. At least now I know I am not crazy or imagining things.

Nick, I don't mean to hijack. I just wanted to see how you are not alone and hope you can learn from my experience and how our spouses' words can make us feel like we are going crazy if we let them.

She knows when you are quoting somebody else. She probably knows that you've been reading and searching for help....and this is one of the techniques. I would be angry, too. I does make a woman feel like you are patronizing when she's telling you these kind of things and you attempt to "validate" but it comes across much like an adult trying to get a kid to calm down.

My H once also got upset when I tried to validate accusing me of patronizing him. I can see that because I was using DB language that was foreign to our past interactions. I still don't know how to go around that, I just try to convey my honesty when I am validating.

Nick - Stay strong and focused. This is so hard, but you have support here and people who are cheering you on!