LRT - Dealing with WAW Affair

[RealityTrip]

Thanks for checking in on me Grace. I have been really trying to feel the emotions. Until a few weeks ago I was using xanax to supress them everytime they surfaced. I decided that I did not want to ignore them anymore and am no longer using medication when I feel anxious or despair. I want this pain to mean something in my life. I want it to have a redemptive purpose.

I've been thinking a lot about the reasons my W's journey took this path. I pulled out a letter from her that she wrote me about 4yrs ago. She wrote it after a fight as an apology and to express herself. In the letter she talked about her unhappiness with her life and was honest that she blamed me. I don't remember exactly what my response was at the time but I know myself and I'm sure it was oppositional. 'Blame me? What are you talking about?... You are overweigtht because YOU don't take care of yourself. We don't have a baby (she tried) because YOU didn't get pregnant and won't let me try yet. We are having financial troubles not because of me, I've kept the same job, provide our benefits and retirement. YOU are the one who won't work a 9-5'. Although I never told her these things I'm sure I thought them after reading her letter and probably passive aggressivley got my point across because I was wounded by her blame. My point being, I took her resentment for me personally and projected her perceived failures back at her. I didn't have the relationship skills at the time to understand that she was reaching out to me because she needed me. I don't think she had(s) the skills to realize it at the time either.

When she gave me the ILYBINILWY speech in May 2012, she voiced the exact same resentments, only now they were stronger. Unbeknownst to me they had been fueled and validated for a year by our "friend", her AP.

I know all those things are not my fault. Our marriage is a partnership so we share the ownership of these things in some respects. I know she will have to come to terms with them on her own and in her own time. But it's very upsetting that the AP is in her ear. It's like were trying to work on our marital issues and individual issues except she is being sabotaged by someone with alterior motives. Who's ultimate purpose is to bring about the end of our marriage for what she thinks will be the beginning of hers. We are not the first time the AP has been the OW. We are the third. The other two, one heterosexual marriage and a lesbian LT relationship did not survive. The AP claimed her prize in both, and had two failed relationships from them.

As much as I want my W to be happy, I'm scared for her too.