Dealing with WAW Part 3

[pilot]

Thanks again for your time. You hit on some good points, and completely off the mark on one (I'll get to it). But as always, you have given me lots to think about and I cherish the time and wisdom you are sharing.

LBSer is saying "Wow, I didn't know this before, but now I do. I see that our marriage sukked. WAS did me a favor by leaving....so I don't care if the WAS wants back in now. I've seen the light."

Close. Not that it sucked. I really was happy with my marriage. But I have also learned that my love language (WOA...go figure) was not being met for years. She started off that way. I was the greatest person in the world to her. The smartest, the most attractive, I was just flat out awesome to her and she told everyone constantly. It made me feel good. Somewhere along the way, it slowed down, and then stopped. I chalked it up to the honeymoon period being over and just life getting in the way. I suppose she always thought my LL was physical, because she always made sure there was never more than a day or two that went by without me at least having sexual pleasure. While I was happy about that, WOA IS my LL. Physical was like next to last. (A close second to WOA is QT). I also place a high value on trust. Whether it is with my friends, family, business colleagues. Trust is extremely important to me. And while I get the she lost trust in me during the M, it is different from having an A. If she lost trust in me during the M it was because of lack of communication. If you do not know she is not happy, how can you work to correct that? Having an A, then lying about it, then continuing it is a different ballgame altogether. I am not saying I cannot move past it and rebuild it. If I REALLY thought I could not, I would not be here in the first place.

Also, revenge is often a piece of this equation even when we are not aware of it.

The LBSer is hurt and wounded, and feels deeply rejected. In time, like when the WAS sees that they made a mistake, a part of the reason some LBSers are hesitant to reconcile is b/c they want to make the WAS sweat!

I get your point on this. You may be close. However, I would say I am not out to HURT her in the process of winning me back. I would not do that. I am not out to hurt her, and never have been. However, where I think you may be close is that yea, there is a part of me that thinks ok, you made your bed, now sleep in it. Not a big part of me, but I would be dishonest if said that thought has not crossed my mind. And that is different from hurting her in the PROCESS of getting me back. That is a path which means there is no path back.

Plus you were quick on the draw to get the old black book out, and to show her that you could get a date in a heartbeat and would...so retaliation has peaked its' head in your situation. At least in my opinion.

Yea, I was quick to do it. Heck I was thinking about it on the drive back to my home state. It is not retaliation. As I spoke of in great detail early in my posting on the forum, it was a coping method of moving on when hurt in a relationship. I would jump to a 'safe' ex where I knew I could get the emotional attention I would be missing from the previous relationship. And honestly, when I was driving back to begin my S, I was giving it thought. I knew of 3 women I could jump right into a R with of varying degree. To date though, I have only engaged one in a friendship. Nothing physical. No talk about any relationship between the two of us. Am I dumb enough to think it is not on her mind? Of course not. No boundaries have been crossed, and nothing has transpired that I would not have been comfortable had my W been in the same room.

OMG I just remembered that you're the guy who already brought an old flame to a kids' birthday party, right? That was you, correct? She is NOT going to think you are pursuing her b/c of compliments. We already covered how Unlikely it is that she'll think this b/c you have a history of moving on fast, and you shoved the divorce papers in her face, filled them out, demanded the confessions ETC.

Yea, that was me. Honestly it was not INTENDED as a slap in the face to my W. I contacted this person when I got back to my home state after our S began. Turns out she is caring for her niece who happens to be the same age as my 3 year old. My W and I had agreed to throw a quickly put together Bday party for both of the kids a week after we got back and she was going to get the kids. Since my 5 year old had lived and had friends in this area before we moved away 2 years prior, he had plenty of friends coming. There was only 1 other child, 2, who would be close to my 3 year old's age. So it was convenient. However, I will not lie and say the appearance of it did not give me a momentary smile. And do not say I am evil and hurtful. She is the one who absolutely stated she was done with the M and said there was no way we could work it out. So it was not like I was dragging OW in her face when she wanted to work on our M. Again...back to the 'you made your bed' scenario.

Pilot stop kidding yourself. You want to do nothing but wait and see AND get a full confession about things you can verify, and that's a lot to demand and it's not very realistic. I think you are setting yourselves up for failure but somehow you want her to take the blame.

25, you may be completely right. I honestly do not know what I want. I am more paralyzed with fear than I am dead set moving in a direction. It is not so much a confession I am looking for, but a reason to jump back in with both feet. I suppose I could right now. But right now the water is muddy, and I do not know how deep the bottom is.

Also what is with this "I take 50% responsibility for my share of the problems"???

It's RARE that each party owns the same amount. Sure it takes 2 to make a marriage work but it CAN take just one to spoil it. It's rare when it's just one person but it's not impossible. TIl you mentioned the man you think she was with, the whole situation in your marriage sounded as if the problems were 90-95% on your end, wouldn't you say?

That 50% is borrowed from the DB forum, and I believe book. Of course nothing is ever 50/50. However, I would argue strongly against the idea that it was 90-95% on me. There were many things I did not like. But I am the kind of person who does not dwell on the little things. I did not dwell on my LL not being spoken for years. I figured that is just how things were and I went along happy I had beautiful healthy kids, and beautiful wife. We never fought, and I thought that was what defined a great marriage.

Pilot, your changes during the campaign and the injury/recovery period ( i mean the changes that were not desirable), were things she put up with, and waited out, right?)
You don't seem able to do the same for her, so why is that?

Since You lump the campaigns and dog attack into one time frame, I'll assume they ran consecutively. So that means SHE put up with a lot for a LONG TIME...(longer than you have been at THIS martial challenge, right?)

What do you mean I am not able to do the same? From how she explained her unhappiness to me, it seems pretty much on par with where I am. She said she was unhappy for a long time, and never considered it was me that was making her unhappy. Then one day, she said it was me. Why do I not get that same freedom of discovery?

The campaigns began in 2009 and ran through 2012. The dog attack happened several months after the last election in 2012. So I guess you can say they ran concurrent. I would argue your statement of her putting up with a lot in the sense that campaigning was an investment towards our family's financial future. As the breadwinner, any gain from those efforts benefit her equally. The family benefits. I can see how the time away can cause her stress. But not different than anyone else who has a H or W who works full time. The main difference was that for the first time, I did not set my own schedule and could not just take off whenever I wanted. My schedule was set by the campaign staff. The dog attack (I think you addressed it somewhere else, but I will answer here) was a mess. I felt, and basically was useless for the first couple of months. She had to drive me everywhere, including Drs and physical therapy, and I spent a lot of time at home on the couch or in bed. The medication really screwed with my mind, and so I get it that she may have felt the extra burden of having to shoulder all the extra responsibilities. I really have no idea how much/little this time affected her outlook on the marriage. You seem to place a high amount of value to this. However, if the tables were reversed, and let's say, she had an injury, or a sickness which incapacitated her for many months, and I was here on the board saying how the affects of my wife's injury/sickness made me not like her as much, I am pretty sure you would not even talk to me anymore, and probably sign off by calling me an ahole.

Where is the woman you fell in love with?

I think She's still in there, under the pain and anger and deeply wounded pride.

Maybe. And that is why I am still here putting in the work.

Now she has shame, too.

???

But The holiday season is a BLUR to me. I have very little recall. A few months of my life are just "gone", you know?

I know exactly what you mean. I cannot for the life of me recall anything about my youngest son's first birthday, and I was there.

and the whole lifestyle was always centered around YOU.

I see how you derive this, but the intent was always to give the family a better future. Minus the dog attack of course. Everything I have done, every thing I do is to ensure I am able to provide for my family in the best way, and give each member of my family the best opportunity to follow their own dreams and paths to happiness.

As you now realize, your jokes about money and the "me too" lines when she had to ask you for money, were in your eyes, defensible and fully explainable. I can see that you are a bit embarrassed about it. I get that.

Just so you know, those types of comments would have punched me in the stomach then. I think she needed reassuring at a deep level and not just about money.

If I were a stay at home mom, which is risky for women these days (B/C If there is a divorce we have removed ourselves from the workforce, and lessened our ability to support ourselves or our children)
and

If I needed reassurance from you, the breadwinner of the family, the man who was going to be wealthy b/c he knows money/real estate, the man with the plane,

if I needed just to hear that we were going to be alright,

and then instead I got the brush off, well...OUCH.

I get that my approach was wrong. And that is why I listed it as one thing I would have done differently. No one is perfect, and this was a great example of where I was less than perfect.

weren't OWs a bit of an issue for you early on in the marriage or right before, when there were texts? I mean weren't there some incidents that made your w feel really insecure?

NEVER. I never had any contact with any person of the opposite sex behind my W's back. The few times when I would get a text, or phone call, or in some way contacted by an ex, or woman who my wife did not know, or might have been uncomfortable had she known I was doing something in secret, I ALWAYS gave full disclosure. I would tell her "hey, XXX called me today. She asked me this, or wanted my advice on this, etc." I always was hyper sensitive to any kind of behavior which could remotely be construed as inappropriate. If I received a text, I always handed my phone to my W and let her read the entire conversation. If she was in the room when it came in, I always let her know. I always kept every contact brief. I honestly had zero desire in any other person, other than my W. She never asked for this level of disclosure. I offered it freely. And she never had any reason to suspect I would ever be unfaithful. Much as I never suspected it would happen on her end. Until after BD that is.

It makes a woman feel close to you when you are treating her like a partner, sharing burdens you feel, but you were not sharing them.
You were deceiving her to protect her image of you, (who doesn't like being admired?) Can you see where pride played a role in this?

I get this. And I get where I was wrong. As I stated, I never thought the economic downturn, especially in my industry, would last as long, or be as severe as it was. I always kept the bills she had in her name paid, and her credit was and still is rock solid. I fell on the financial sword many times to keep her insulated. I always figured things would turn for the better sooner rather than later. It was not about protecting my pride. It was more about keeping her from worrying. As she tends to worry more about things than I would.

Pilot, my gut says you are a handsome man whom she saw as a good catch. But then you made some choices that tripped you up. Rather than owning up to them and seeking support from her, you chose to "nobly" shut her out and thereby cause her to feel less secure inside the marriage, more neglected,

Humility aside, yea. I am by many standards a handsome guy. Throw in charm and charisma (haha, ok in person, not on a divorce forum) and she probably did think I was a good catch. I thought she was a great catch. But I get your point about how the events in our marriage could make her feel neglected.

Knowing your dating history as she does,

would it be that much of a leap for her to think/fear you were going to cheat on her or leave her?

Seeing as how I have never cheated on anyone in my entire history of dating and marriage, I doubt she felt I would ever cheat on her. But also she knows many of my ex's would love another chance at a relationship with me, so I get that could make her feel threatened. I cannot control how she feels about that. All I can control is my own actions, and I never gave her any reason to suspect or even remotely believe I would leave her, or fool around on her.

Thank you again from the bottom of my heart 25. Our interactions give me much to think about, and reflect on. You help me see things which may be right in front of me, but blocked from my view or just need to be re examined from a different perspective.