I thought everything was okay...

[25yearsmlc]

Oh, my first edit got deleted.

I'm very committed to make this work. I look back and we had a really good relationship. The problem is that there was a fundamental communication barrier/issue that we never identified. I think she got overwhelmed

trying to balance kids/work/friends/Relationships/self esteem, etc and I didn't see that she was in pain with it. I'm fully committed to try and fix that, if given the chance.

If you read between the lines in your 3 posts here^^, you're NOT really owning any problems. At least not in comparison to her, & make no mistake, you DO compare her to you, every single time. Look at how you begin to say something that you need to work on, only to then zip right back to how SHE is actually at fault, or caused it, or does it more, or "doesn't communicate it" or brings it on or whatever. And btw, "but she never told me!" is almost never true, unless real fear or the belief that telling you would be futile, apply.

Or it's something a loving h really would not need to be told, like "I don't like being put down", "bossed around" "stop being so controlling", and or "when you raise your big voice, you intimidate me/wear me down/ badger me into agreeing, out talk me til I give in/it's Your way or the 'wrong way', and so on.

Women don't leave marriages b/c they are having trouble '"balancing life's" dimensions, at least not when they are ENJOYABLE activities and relationships...

I think SHE is saying You are critical of her. I think She feels put down by you, and a times perhaps criticized or even bullied. (Most bullies don't see themselves as just that, btw. )

Hey, seriously, I'm NOT trying to bash you here. But I concede that In DB terms, yeah this is a "2 x 4" - but it is b/c you are NOT hearing her.

You are actually resisting that. And you are Not taking a truly deep (& brave) honest inward look, and you are keeping score big time.

Scorecards do not belong in a marriage. They are destructive and keep us stuck in our anger or victimhood or bullying ways (b/c since we are 'right" we should "win")

Keeping score and Not hearing her, are perilous to your journey here.


I can empathize with how this friendship with OM morphed into this over a long time period. If she's being truthful in telling me what happened, It was definitely friendship that became an EA that became a slight PA and then she got hooked and it caused her to think it was more than he was ready to commit to. I think for her to think that it could go further, she had to have checked out of our M.

Weird thing is she told me she feels emotionally unsafe with me, but told me all of these things about how she felt and how this progressed. However, I guess I was the one asking the questions, she didn't offer up most of this on her own.

Do you see any validity to any of my comments? Dig deep.