This is a very confused answer below. I know I am responsible for difficulties in the marriage but after a year seperated it is difficult to verbalise them with out it coming across as my blaming her. I belive that it is all my fault for not knowing how to help her to feel happy.
what my marriage problems were?
That is the crux of the matter as it is not really that clear to me. I have been trying to understand what went wrong. That I was too submissive, that I was no longer acting as a partner but just a piece of the furniture. That I was cluttering the house up by being there.
Problems in the marriage: Complaints that I always wanted to have activities as a family with her. Feelings I had was that my opinion was not valued and that she is always right no matter what. The feeling that both of us thought the other was too controlling and we were under the other's thumb. ( i.e. everthing I was unhappy about we both seem to have felt but with the roles reversed)
When I have tried to understand what went wrong and ask the answers are confused. To summarise it all would be to say she was unhappy with her life with me.
Comments I am trying to extrapolate sense from ( I am falling back on my engineering background with using lists I know) ----------------------------------------------------------- -Very first thing she said at moment of kicking me out She said she wanted me to leave to make me happy and more self confident. - then given a grocery list by WAW of things to change: - be happy - spend more QT with the kids WAW acknowleged the changes but then says she wanted divorce all along and was/is just waiting for me to accept it
-after eight months seperation she was feeling stifled and that I was holding her back.
- after six months seperation started saying that problems started five years ago : ( about the time I finished a Masters and had been slowly building up my self confidence) i.e. I had started to think that I should be allowed to express an opinion and dialogue.
- that we argued. ( had differences of opinion)
- that I am to blame for everything she felt was wrong with her life
- Now says her life is blossoming and she has never been so happy.
Then the most hurtful comment that she only married me to fix me.
Against that maybe I should just give up (but I owe it to myself ,my children and my wife to try and honour the promise I made to her when we married) . I really do not know anymore what to offer/change anymore. Backing down constantly has not helped. Drawing lines in the sand has not helped. I really have run out of ideas of what to do given that we live in seperate dwellings.
Again today told by personal therapist that I should just let go and get on with my life and give up trying to change myself to please her.
