Anything left to salvage? - or where from here?

[Psych77]

ALRIGHT

I guess it's time to go right back to the beginning. Start from the ground level and build up.

Since W has left me, effectively, alone, I now have the time for a complete renovation of myself. Besides, that is exactly what is needed.

When W fell in love with me in the first place, I was my own person, with some confidence in what I had to offer. I liked myself, because I saw some good qualities in me that I was happy to open up to other people. The seeds of my bad temper were present (and will still need to be worked on) but I was not as quick tempered, because I was much more secure in my own feelings about myself. W could make little jokes about me, and I was usually OK with it, because she was not my only source of affirmation in life.

Compare that to now. I am socially isolated, live my life with little concern for anything except whether I am an adequate husband and father (much of that being focused on whether I am making enough money), and I am anxious that I am inadequate most of the time. Every time W says anything in criticism of my fatherhood or my role as a husband or provider, it tears me apart, because for years I have allowed her to be the only judge of my worth. As a result, it is only with effort that I can hold back my temper, as I want to defend myself against what she says about me. My skin has gotten thin, and so my first reaction, if I do not restrain myself, has been to lash out.

So, for my own sake (and, in the eventuality of a reconciliation, for W's sake), I must regain my independence - be able to support myself emotionally without W.
For a first step, I will start taking Karate again - this will put me in contact with other people, and give me a chance to feel good about myself by achieving something

I have Asperger's disorder. While this is nothing new, I only learned that fact much later in life - after W and I were married. I have difficulty identifying and processing my emotions. When we were dating, and when we were first married, this was not a problem, as we had hours and hours to discuss our points of view and to talk about our feelings. Once we had children, we no longer had that luxury, but I still had (have) difficulty understanding and expressing my feelings, which probably results in a disproportionate amount of my emotional life being converted to anger which is poorly controlled. Furthermore, when we first got married, we were surrounded by a group of very supportive friends who, while none were aware of the label "Aspergers" (I wasn't even aware of it myself), understood my quirks, and served as a great support for me and for our marriage.

I must learn strategies to maintain control of my behavior when I am feeling intense emotions, so that instead of reacting I can identify my emotions and figure out what to do with them. I must also begin surrounding myself with others who are positive toward me, as it was unfair in the first place for me to expect all of my acceptance and emotional support to come from W.
For a first step, I am going through a self-help course designed to help me to relieve stress immediately as it arises, and then become more aware of my emotions. I am also seeing an IC, but I may need to see someone else, as she seems only focused on reminding me that our M problems are not ONLY my fault, and sometimes has trouble hearing my goals.

Most of all, I must make these changes for myself. If I make them to try to fix our M, or to make W happy, they will only be short term. Instead of working changes, I must become changed. If I do, then these changes will be advantageous to me whether or not we reconcile.

These are some initial goals. I hope that writing them down will help me to keep myself accountable. I also count on the community here (and especially Bond) to let me know if I am missing the obvious.