What we each did wrong that hurt our marriage

[notsurewhat2do]

I've been asked to share some thoughts so here I go.

How many of you are at a point in your recovery that you can accept that you added to the breakdown in your marriage?

When I look back on my own marriage I have finally realized that I'm partly to blame. Maybe I always realized it but was not able to admit it. I'm not talking about that piece of cr-p list your x gives you that lists all the things you did wrong. We all know those lists were made up as an excuse. I'm talking about the real negative contribution you made.

I always thought I had a wonderful marriage. Always bragged because we never had a fight. I realize now that that was a symptom of trouble in my marriage. We never had a fight because we never talked about the things we didn't like. We brushed everything under the carpet or carried it around in our hearts.


Eventually all that stuff eats away at the marriage and the strong base is gone. X started looking for something else and of course a new mistress was more than willing to give it. She sensed immediatly what I wasn't giving him and jumped in. It's not her fault he was out there available, she just saw an opportunity to improve her own life and did! It's X's fault and mine.

Now I'm not saying it's my fault the x ended up in an affair, he knew what he was doing was wrong and did it anyway. What I'm saying is I helped create a situation where he didn't think he could talk to me. I stopped being his best friend and he wanted one.

So my contribution to my own divorce is just that I stopped being my husband's best friend and it cost me my marriage.

Short of a spouse have a diagnosed illness I can't think of a case where we didn't all have some contribution.

So, here's the question, what was YOUR contribution?

Gigi

I full accepted my fault in my marriage. We are not divorced yet (as you can see by my signature), but I accept where things broke down and I admit it was as much my fault as his. We had some pretty weird circumstances, but the short end of the stick was both us were/are good at not talking for fear of hurting each other, I knew H was depressed and stressed about recent job loss/injury/disability. I accept that I wasn't on board with H's "dream" to be somebody in the hunting world. I accept that I kept things from him in an effort to protect him, which probably only caused him to feel shut out even more. I accept that after 2 years for waiting for him to be healed from injury, I got tired of being primary caregiving with nothing in return. BUT, I full accept that I needed to do more and H needed me to do more. I guess we are both hard headed and NOT mind readers.

Now I feel so guilty about it. I wish I could turn back time and just do the little things he asked me to do without whinning about them, just spend time with him. Would it have helped? Maybe not, but the pain is not knowing.