Becoming Patient Man

[SFC_Swede]

PA,

I think if I had a time machine, and the lessons I have learned here and in DR...I would have insisted on a mutual recovery with both of us admitting and working on our issues. Our recovery was VERY one sided. I drank, she told me multiple times to stop or she was done = justification for PA.

Now I will be the first one to flog myself for my past. I kick myself in the rear end almost daily (I regret all those I hurt with my drinking, and wish I had .01% of that cash back). I got the help I needed, and more importantly, I did it for ME.

Now flip the coin. The onus was on me fully if I wanted the M to continue. She never accepted the responsibility for the pain she caused me. She never acknowledged how crappy that was to do to someone who was on the other side of the globe already in danger, and then having to worry about that crap on top of it. She made me feel guilty for causing it.

And I sucked it all up because a) I loved her, and b) I was terrified of being D and alone again. But you also have to realize that it damaged how I looked at her from there forward. I had her on a pedestal so high. I bragged to everyone how great a W she was. She was a saint IMHO. But after the PA...it caused all that faith, and trust to wither away.

It didnt help that the OM was a M cop. He got away scott free. I was so tempted to go tell his W, but that was another condition of any future R with W.

Sooooooo...long story short, I would have made her own it, and grew together in the new R as I hope we still can do now.