Piecing - Round 2

[Denver_2010]

Hi LJGH2. I have not been around the boards much lately. Super busy with work, and with life. I will try to get over to your thread, but even today I only have a few minutes. Thanks for the support.

A very quick update. The last 6 weeks or so have been pretty rough for W and I. I have to admit that things slid down hill after i looked at those phone records. I had a very difficult time putting that aside and my attitude towards W reflected my difficulty. I did what I had discussed here and told W that i was dealing with some things that had been triggered. I told her that I still have triggers, that I had to deal with them, and that I hoped that they would lessen with time.

W wasn't real thrilled with that answer, but she didn't tell me that. Later, when things blew up, she told me that she suspected that it had something to do with events that happened while we were separated and that she was angry that I didn't tell her what it was. I admitted a little more during that conversation, but not the specifics.

Her attitude towards me became guarded when she sensed that something was going on with me. That made me feel that she was distant and making other things in her life more of a priority than me and our M. Basically everything kind of snowballed.

Even during the past 6 weeks though, there have been ups. It hasn't been all bad. We have gone several days with things being pretty good and feeling pretty connected, and then we have gone through several days where things have been really distant between us.

We had a huge argument on Saturday night. Both of us let loose on one another. W telling me that I was reverting to old behaviors of withdrawing, me telling W that I had been withdrawing because she wasn't making me and our M a priority and that she wasn't even trying to pay attention to my love languages. W telling me that she was being distant because of my behavior, that I don't give things time to heal because I always seem mad at her. I don't know. It's basically a "chicken or the egg" dilemma. My actions have a causal effect on her actions, and vice versa. It is VERY difficult to break that cycle.

W left the house after the argument saying that she was going to go somewhere with one of her friends, that she wasn't going to waste her weekend arguing with me. About 10 minutes after she left, I called her and asked her if she wanted to just go to dinner and try to put the argument aside. She agreed and came back to the house. We ended up having a good night and rest of the weekend.

The argument was on Friday night. I have noticed that we have both been trying to "right" what we each complained about during that argument, for the past few days. I can see that W has made a conscious effort to be more physically affectionate, my love language, and I have tried to just put aside my feelings of frustration and get back to doing the things that helped me get to a point of reconciliation.

I have been doing a lot of thinking about the past couple of years. Things look much different in hindsight than they do when you are in the mist of them. I have many thoughts that I want to share with everyone here. Especially those that are just beginning this process.

I hope to come back and expand on this more, but the bottom line is that what I went through during my S is a once in a lifetime deal for me. While I am happier than I can put into words that I have a second chance to make my M work, I don't believe that I would go through what I did again. I see now that I was not the sole cause of the breakdown in our M. I put W on a pedestal during my sitch, and I think that I really minimized her flaws. I love her to death, but she is not perfect and she is difficult to get along with at times. I TOTALLY put those things out of my mind during my S.

I'm NOT recanting anything that I came to acknowledge about myself, nor the problems taht I caused. I'm just saying that I see how things came to be the way that they were. There is no question that W and I would slip back into that misery if both of us were not committed to NOT having that happen. And it is WORK. It really, really is. No matter how much change you make, no matter how much self discovery you do, it is work. I'm glad that I went through it, I'm glad that I made that choice, and I'm happy that I have that second chance. But I wouldn't do it again. It was too hard and too painful. And I was too hard on myself.

Just some thoughts that I have looking back.

Denver