Hello! 20 year marriage teetering... (part II)

[AnotherStander]

I think you missed my point. I'm referring to, that all we read , is your side.....

Obviously, unless W decides to come here and start posting.

Well, I'm sorry to ask you to paraphrase a bit for me. You have sprinkled in some of her complaints. Mostly it was because you were absent, complained a lot, and were angry/yelled quite often.

Not absent. Mostly it was that I complained a lot (true) and that I watched too much TV (true) and didn't help enough around the house (somewhat true, I've always done all the outdoor work while she did most of the indoor stuff). Those are all fairly recent things, more below.

I think that you aren't just along for the ride...and that you want to be the driver...

Sure I do, who doesn't want to control their own destiny? I doubt anyone here likes or enjoys having their life turned upside down by someone else. And I AM controlling my destiny now. But you imply that I'm trying to drive W's destiny and that is completely false.

You are standing on a soapbox, saying everything that you are doing correctly now....after 20? years of poor behavior and choices...

We've been married for 20 years, but we owned a home together for years before we got married. And we were very happy together for most of that. I went into depression about 3 years ago and never knew it. IC helped me to understand what happened and how I had withdrawn, and I can see it clearly now but couldn't then. That's when the complaining and TV watching started. I don't think it's fair to characterize depression as a choice, there are a lot of people out there mired in depression that would just love to choose to emerge from it. Believe me, W never would have stood for 25 years of poor behavior.

So the last four months is supposed to make up for that?

It's been 6 months. And I don't understand what you mean by "make up for it". If you mean "wipe the slate clean" then no, I've never asked W for that and don't expect it. What I've said to W from shortly after BD is that neither of us wants to go back to the old R but that we could build a new R going forward.

You make it sound as if you are done with your own work, and you are just waiting for her to see how great you have become...

LOL! No, if you go back and read a little closer you'll see I was done and ready to file for D in January. This wasn't a tactic to win her back. I've seen no indications from her that she had any change of heart at all and she seemed quite happy in her new sitch. So I was done and ready to move on. And my feelings for W have changed substantially since she left. Anyway, when I talked to her about sitting down in January to work out the D terms, much to my surprise she said that SHE wasn't ready for that, that she is still confused and doesn't know what she wants. So I agreed to postpone D talk until she had some more time to think things through.

Like I said above....four months will not erase the past 20 years...

It's 6 months and 3 years, but again, who said anything about erasing things? Like Michele says in DR, you can forgive, but that doesn't mean the same thing as forgetting. This isn't about erasing anything, it's about learning and moving forward.

Indeed, I actually started out posting on an MLC forum when this first started. She does match some of the characteristics of MLC- she has expressed a desire to artistically express herself in some way and get out of the "rut" she's in. I actually took her to an art class (where you paint a painting in 3 hours) a couple of weeks ago and she went to a photography class last weekend, I invited her to a pottery throwing class but she thought it would be too "messy". Still, she's not even considering staying.

I'm not sure what you meant by this post...

Me either. I don't even remember posting that. 08-22, that is around the time I had that really bad bout of anxiety, didn't get any sleep and went on the A/D's. I haven't ever gone back and read my old posts, but I've struggled many times throughout this process and probably posted some things that don't make clear sense.

And there is a part of you,(and most of us that have posted here, present and in the past) that haven't thought that if only our spouses would read the book, or see things the way I do, then we could all just be happy....

No, there is no part of me that thinks that. I think early on I thought that and in fact I think early on that I mentioned that I sent W a chapter from the book. But no, I don't think that now at all. As far as being "happy", that isn't the goal. If you haven't read the Happiness Trap then I highly recommend it, happiness is an emotion, not a goal.

But then again, your wife DID read the book.....right?

My W isn't a reader. I did find a copy of DB in with some other old books in stuff she left behind, but I don't know if it was a gift or something she bought or what. It had a receipt in it, I posted the date earlier, I can't remember now but it was old. 10+ years. And the binding doesn't look like the book was opened. So she probably did not read it.

Where is the sympathy for what SHE might be going through ?

I posted this yesterday in eyesopen's thread:

"I knew anger was one of the phases of grief, so I expected to be angry at some point. But it never did happen. I never did feel anger towards my W, maybe because I knew she was hurting and suffering too. I think it's easy for the LBS to assume that everything is great for the WAS, but that's rarely the case. They're in great pain too."

Yesterday....

What about the past 20+ years ?

You asked where the sympathy is for what she's going through, implying that I have none. I clearly do as evidenced by the post I made the day before you asked the question. So now you want to change the parameters of the question. I'm not here to post about my previous 25 years with W, I simply don't have the time to post that rich tapestry we've shared together. It's been a truly amazing journey. I take offense to your implication that my W has been suffering for my entire marriage. I've never said that and she has never said that. I promise you, she is strong-willed enough that she would not have stayed with me for that long if she was unhappy.

Where was that sympathy when you had decided that YOU had had enough, after a couple months?

It's been 6 months, not a couple. And it's been the most difficult 6 months of my entire life. The biggest part of the struggle now is just not knowing where it's going. I'm ready to put it behind me and move on. That doesn't mean I'm not symathetic to W's struggles, once she told me she was still struggling I backed down from my plans to move on.

From the picture you have painted ( being absent, and controlling) , your wife carried this marriage on her back for 20 years, and within the matter of months, you have had enough, and are ONLY waiting around because she asked....

Not absent. I've never been absent. And no, W never carried the M. She'd even tell you I was a fantastic father and husband except when I was in the depression.

Was that only when things are all puppy dogs and rainbows ?

Please refrain from smarta$$ comments.

What do your vows mean to you ?

Do you mean the ones we said when we were married? Those don't really mean anything to me. It's just garbage young kids recite to each other without even knowing the meaning. What does mean something to me is that W and I stood together for 25 years through thick and thin, birthed and raised 3 amazing children and built a rich, amazing life together. That's what's worth standing for and is why I've been standing these 6 months.

I don't want to stay here and bash you, and I'm fairly certain that you don't want me to.

You are quite right, and it's not the content of your posts, it's the holier-than-thou attitude. And perhaps you misunderstand, but I don't journal because I want people like you going over every single word to nitpick it. In fact I'm not looking for feedback at all. I just journal to get things off my chest. It's a release for me, I do it and then never read it again. Maybe someday I will go back and read it, I don't know.