WAW...Again, Part II

[stumps]

I am still wrestling with this...dynamic...for lack of a better word, in which the more I better myself, the more I feel like I deserve some goodness in my marriage in return. Not a sense of entitlement really... But a feeling that I am worthy of love and affection. I guess on some level, unconsciously or consciously I'm not quite sure, I didn't used to think I was. Maybe on some level I was aware of my failures in meeting my wife's needs, so I didn't think I deserved to have my needs met in return.

But now, by all accounts, including my wife's, I have become the man she always wanted...the man I used to be. I can look myself in the mirror and believe it when I say to myself I'm a good man, a good father, and a good husband. And it is, on the one hand, its own reward. But as I said, it is giving rise to this feeling of being worthy of love, and affection, and respect.

I don't want to end my marriage. I love my wife so much, and the family that I married into is so wonderful. But she seems so steadfast in her resolve that she's done. So while two months seems like nothing in DB terms, I'm starting to question how long I could keep this up... Not the changes I've made, but being in a relationship where there isn't reciprocity. Maybe I need to be reminding myself that this is what my W was feeling, whether she realized it or not--whether it was justified or not, in the months leading up to the bomb drop.

As an aside, speaking of the months leading up to the bomb drop, W did recently admit that during those months she had been treating me quite unfairly...that the going out and partying had gotten completely out of control and that, while there were things that she certainly deserved in the marriage and wasn't getting, I nonetheless didn't deserve the treatment I was recieving from her. She said she wasn't proud of herself for that and was sorry. I in return let her know how much it meant to me to hear her say that.