Next Step, Moving On

[dorightman]

Hi Regretful, first I want to thank you for your honest opinion. Here's my response to your post:

She said you criticized and punished her and neglected her. Did you? Was this your insecurities talking? Did you really not appreciate her as much as she says? These are deep, deep, deep hurts, my friend. She is saying she gave you her body, but what she's not saying is that she felt used, she felt taken advantage of, she felt like you did not cherish her. You did not cherish her

[color:#000000][/color]During the 3 years of financial stress, and I do mean STRESS. 36 months of not being able to pay the bills...I asked her to make concessions like take the kids out of preschool a few days a week, cut down the cable,phone bills a little etc etc. Her response was no way. She didn't act like a partner, she acted like a tyrant. Not only that, but she went shopping and added to the monthly debt. This went on for 36 months, we blew the small emergency savings I had and we had to take a second loan on the house. As time went on, I could see that we would be out of money in several months and I was worried that the bank would take our house. I got ulcers I was so stressed. Again, she did not budge. My response to her was to feel resentful, I lost respect, I felt that she was endangering the family, and I couldn't deal. I hermited, I got depressed, I shut down from her, I wasn't in the mood for love.
My dad was dying at this time aswell, so I was overwhelmed.
I didn't feel loved by her, I felt like a bank to her, a bank with not enough money!
I know this is not an excuse for not loving her, but it is how I really felt.
I've worked my a$$ off for the past 16 years to give her a beautiful life. I've tried to give her everything to make her happy. I've made a lot of sacrifices for her, and I did it because I love her. I think my mistake in all of this is I didn't have any boundaries and eventually I felt taken for granted, the same as her.

She's stuck in resentment and anger from the past. If she would stop focusing on the negative and start focusing on the positive, if she would have compassion, empathy, forgiveness. If she would think in terms of solutions rather than running and fear.......
I take responsibility for how I treated her, but she doesn't take responsibility for her part in this.
I also think that she is projecting her mother's lack of love for her father onto me. She's playing out her families disfunction on me, and her mother never divorced her father, she stayed in a loveless marriage and maybe is encouraging my W to divorce me because of that.
The fact is I love my W. We went through a long patch of darkness and came out in crises. Were ok financially now, but if we get D, it's gonna be tough again.
I understand how she feels and why. What I don't understand is how she holds onto the negative and doesn't want to save the M and family. She thinks the grass is greener...
I have showed her for the past 12 months that I want to do anything/everything possible to save the M. I did have a few emotional breakdowns, but I think that they were a normal response to the way she's been treating me( No love, detachment, like Im her advisory, threatening D, forcing separation.)
I'm sorry, but I don't see myself as the problem here. I feel muted, abandoned, forced into a corner, helpless like I can't even save my kids from this bs., All I want is love, all I want is to make amends, work through the R problems, figure out what went wrong, why, how, fix it and get on with it.
All she wants is space, time, separation, D, no love, no communication except in therapy, money...