You could have done everything perfectly and this crisis would have happened. Because it isnt about you. It is about her demons.
You have learned all this when you were supposed to.
You are a better man for it. That matters, too.
Glad uR was around reply to your post...I read your post a bit ago today and didn't know how to put into words what I was thinking.
T2, all I know of you is the guy I read about on here...and I can "see" clearly how much work you are putting into being a better man.
It's great that you have discovered these things for yourself...but you absolutely cannot beat yourself up about it.
What matters is what you do from here on....to keep DBing and being the best you that you know how to be NOW. We can all look back and wish we'd been better spouses back then...but we can't change any of it.
So, face forward....and keep moving forward. You are a help to so many of us.
Well, I do know that the crisis would have happened sooner or later regardless. I guess it just was so "struck" with the impact of "feeling" it, how that must have felt for her, dangling on the edge of crisis mode.
I have a very, very good visual memory, I think I know the exact day I didn't see her "hope" expression.
I usually get things intellectually first and foremost, so when the emotional part hits...it's a pon farr like thing. Emotional 2X4 (or 6)
In the depths of winter, I finally learned that within me there lay an invincible summer. - Albert Camus
Uncertainty is the very condition which impels people to unfold their powers.-Eric Fromm
Sorry, but you dont have that kind of power - to be able to take hope from someone. No one does.
Found this recently.
Guilt is never caused by what happened. Guilt is something that we add later with the benefit of hindsight.
Go back to the moment you did whatever you did (or didnt do). At that moment, didn't you have a very particular state of mind and didn't you see life in a very particular way?
Now notice what would have happened if you knew then what you know today. Wouldn't you have acted in a very different way? Of course you would, but you didn't now then what you know today. You only knew what you knew.
Even if you knew that you shouldn't do what you did, your knowledge wasn't enough to change your actions, and you certainly didn't know the consequences like you do now.
So here is the big question: are you willing to forgive yourself for not knowing and for not being wiser and more aware? If you look, you were doing the very best you could with the very limited awareness and ability that you had at the time.
Forgive yourself for not being wiser and more aware. Forgive yourself for acting totally consistent with your limited ability and forgive yourself for any damage that may have been caused by your actions. Making mistakes is part of the human process. . So forgive yourself and allow yourself to be human.
You've done great through all this. Worked hard at becoming a better man and been so patient with your W. My simpleminded advice, for what it's worth: Don't hurt yourself. Just continue being the new you, and enjoy each day. In the end that's really the best thing we can do.
What are you guys doing for Christmas? Nothing that involves clipboards I hope!
M: A really long time. Crisis: 5 years. She's still worth it.
Life is never made unbearable by circumstances, but only by lack of meaning and purpose. -Viktor Frankl
All the things that happened to your wife when she was younger, they would have happened regardless of anything you did or didn't do as a husband. The foundation of the crisis was laid long ago.
So you weren't the perfect spouse - who is? Your wife wasn't perfect either. Isn't that part of marriage, accepting the bad with good with our significant other?
You're a good man T. Don't beat yourself up over the past. You've learned from your mistakes. Try not to strive for perfection, just being the best you.
I think you have that covered
Bomb January 2012 - doesn't feel the same about me
~ "There is nothing love cannot face; there is no limit to its faith, hope, and endurance."
Funny, T. I'm reading this and wondering WTF? I realize you got to own your part. I get that. But I'm also wondering if you're not being consumed to the point you're going to far?
AJ
"Our lives begin to end the day we become silent about things that matter" MLK Put the glass down... "Yesterday I was clever so I wanted to change the world Today I am wise, so I am changing myself."
I reread this today and it made me think about the "red ball" analogy that uR talks about in one of her threads.
You know the one. The red ball that was so heavy to carry...and she realized it was her H's ball...not hers. So, she put it down and picked up what was hers to carry, instead.
I thought of this, T2, when I read AJ and Mach's comments.
Be careful....and don't carry stuff around that isn't yours to carry!
I naturally compartmentalize and intellectualize things, it usually serves me well to keep the emotional aspect of things tightly reined in, pushed off to the side for processing later. This is that "later". And when the emotional aspects do finally express themselves, it's usually pretty intense for me.
I'm the person you want around if there is an emergency, a critical problem to be fixed, etc. I don't panic or freak out, usually. So I have been pretty much in that mode of prioritizing and intellectualizing what needs to get done to reach my goals, ie, tend to the kids, keep the household running, work on myself, keep and expand my job, DB, etc. Not much, imo, time spent looking at the past 2 years and before from a non-angry/reactionary emotional standpoint.
The times I wanted to quit before, or was losing hope, were an anger reaction, a fear reaction. These past few months and especially the past couple three weeks have been a non-angry/frustrated review, self check-in. A review of things she wrote, my journalings, things she wrote and so forth.
A lot of pieces fell together...that's why there is always de-briefing after the emergency, fire fight, etc. And also it is afterwards, after the emergency, that people then can let all that which was pushed to the side, in order to function at the highest level possible, come out, be expressed...the emotions, the exhaustion, the fear, etc. I was starting to lose hope, but not out of anger or frustration this time. It's different when those negative, fear-based emotions are not the instigating factor.
So maybe the "emergency mode" is over for me, and that is what I am doing...de-briefing, going over the battle, integrating new or different information from a different perspective.
Hope that all makes sense. It's kinda of fuzzy for me as well right now. And I am and have been trying to be as open, vulnerable and honest here as I can, for my benefit and documentation, and maybe it's useful to someone else along the way.
I did get an entirely new perspective of what W might have been feeling, my compassion for her is expanded, understanding enhanced. "Dark nights of the soul" are a good thing, as long as you get to the day break. And I am.
>>>>>>>>
In other related news, W has been opening up, again. She started sharing her fb stuff with me again, ie, I am included in her shares and stuff her work fiends tag her in, etc.
There is a lot of opening up talking with me also...a lot of self-realization, honesty, self-reflection coming out.
And she makes sure that I'm okay a lot, for small things like if she can't talk at the moment, she texts me later apologizing. She makes sure to text if she has to stay late at work, or is stopping at the grocery, or whatever if she is running late, she says she doesn't want me to worry. And some good working together with the kids, though this is where I really have to/can show the new me...ie, stay the h3ll out of fix-it mode.
She wanted me to get a white-board to help us keep track of the house business, family communication, etc. An idea I proposed a LONG time ago, even before mlc, that she resisted. She wanted to try it now, and no, I did NOT remind her that I had suggested it years ago, nope, done learned how this one works.
I came upstairs from meditation yesterday and she had hung it and it had a message:
"T2, thank you for all the yummy food you have been making "
So, there it is, lol. I hope the wandering writing makes some sense.
In the depths of winter, I finally learned that within me there lay an invincible summer. - Albert Camus
Uncertainty is the very condition which impels people to unfold their powers.-Eric Fromm
