Thank you for the kind words, Gabby. They mean more than you will ever know... especially right now...
Bruce,
Sigh. Just sigh. I'm not sure any amount of 2x4's to the side of your head is going to change this. It's almost disturbing. Do you think your W is guilty? Are you saying that you are responsible but she is guilty? How much more emotional abandonment was she supposed to take from you before she did not become guilty? My stepfather beat the he!! out of my mother for 13 years before she got out. His father beat him relentlessly. That's how he was raised. Was she guilty for leaving? I mean he was "indoctrinated" like you say into believing that beating people is right. And, please, before you tell me that is different, it isn't. As I stated earlier, emotional damage can be even more dangerous than physical damage.
Your friends are doing you NO GOOD by making statements about not understanding your W. My H cheated, lied and is an alcoholic. Let me tell you what happened when he left: my closest friends, including my mother, had a list of things that I needed to work on to make either this relationship or the next successful. There wasn't anyone sitting around indulging me and ignoring my faults - THANK GOD. Were people supportive of me? Absolutely. But there is a big difference between being supportive and being blind and indulgent.
You come here and probably go to your friends trying to drum up support for your side of things. A lot of us do that. I did that. Problem is, we don't think that through to the end. If the whole darn world agreed with us, that DOESN'T get us any closer to reconciliation with our spouses. It probably moves us further away. If what you want is support for your side, then I would probably leave this board and go hang out with your friends. You seem to get it there. If you want to have a chance of saving your marriage then I would probably spend a lot more time thinking about what the folks here are telling you. I would probably be paying close attention to the tone in their words. You are drawing "angry" responses because of your words and attitudes. If you are drawing those types of responses from people who don't even know you, I can't even imagine what you are getting from your W, who once loved you. You will change NOTHING (and probably worsen things) if you continue to make excuses for your behavior while lacking understanding of her behavior. You seem to think that you apologizing is enough. You seem to think that you didn't know better. You seem to think she should come back because you say so. You're completely ignoring her pain! It's like having a gigantic wound on our arm. Someone puts a bandaid on it and says we're fine. Only we're not fine, we still have a gigantic open wound under the bandaid. We need stitches, antibiotics and healing time. You are trying to stick a bandaid on her gigantic open wound and you just don't see it. And I wonder if there is hope of you ever seeing that.
