Card29 VII

[Card29]

This has to be about her. She keeps saying she felt violated. The fact that she keeps repeating it leads me to believe that she isnt feeling validated on this.

It is best to keep it simple,"I am so sorry you are hurting. It was never my intent to make you feel that way. I was wrong to look at porn and put it before my wife. I know that caused a great deal of problems between us."

It is really important that she feels heard. This is really, really difficult for a woman, C. Its why she is asking if she was a good wife. She feels that it is her fault in some way.
That it was because she was lacking.

I will make sure to validate her any chance I get. Thank you for the insight.

I told her that she took her frustrations out on me for a long time, even ones that had nothing to do with me, and that drove me away for her for a long time.

I would imagine she was frustrated with the way your marriage was and knowing what you did. Be careful there.

That's true. She asked, so I told her very simply without too much emotion behind it. I'll have those conversations with her only if she really wants to talk. Like you said, right now this is about her. But in case you didn't follow my sitch very closely, she has battled depression for years, even before I met her. I'm sure the lack of intimacy made it worse. I'm definitely not bringing up her depression right now. That is for a totally different conversation, if it ever gets there. She is trying to deal with it, seeing a psych and taking meds. I would love to support her, I know I can't fix it. I didn't bring it up, though, because I know she is very insecure and the last thing I want is for her to feel guilty about her depression.

I think I could have overcome my porn habit a long time ago if she had met me with love on the topic. Instead she just expressed her disgust.

I know you didnt say that to her, but, I am concerned that you are thinking that. It sounds as if you are blaming her. I would imagine it would be very difficult to meet that topic with love. It is a very hurtful act that clearly made her feel as if she wasnt enough.

I definitely do not blame her. It wasn't just with porn confessions - she met just about any failure or limitation of mine with anger, judgment, etc. For example, last Christmas we decided to try to sing Christmas songs to D2 while I played them on piano. I normally play by myself. I was a little nervous, so I kept screwing up, and she got extremely mad and just left the room after a couple of minutes. That kind of thing happened regularly.

But I definitely understand your point that it might be impossible for her to meet the porn topic with love. She obviously sees it on a similar plane as having an affair, which I would not expect her to react with love towards. Hopefully this is a moot point, though...if my current flight away from porn succeeds permanently, I would never have to worry about how W reacts to a porn confession again.

A woman needs intimacy before the physical, C. She needs to feel connected, loved, cherished. She didnt feel that.

As I said, this has to be about her right now. There should not be anything from you to imply that if you got back together, things would be different. She will think, "Yea, right."

You need to show her that you have changed. She needs to see something different than what she has seen before. And she needs to see it over a long period of time. She needs to feel heard.

Her trust has been broken. You have to earn it back. You do that with consistent actions over time.

Here's my plan for that: I will continue to focus on myself, focus on my 180's (no porn or inappropriate thoughts ... intentional, thoughtful listening ... no angry outbursts ... validations of her feelings ... "No More Mr Nice Guy"). I will continue to utilize and practice my new traits in everyday life, not just when I'm around her (which isn't that often right now, except for this week, moving week). I will not try to simply think of what she needs to see and act that out. That won't last, and she can see through BS from me.

Let her lead. Do not get pulled into convos like the one about whether she was a good wife. That just leads to problems. No matter what you say right now, she is going to think she wasnt a good one because she wasnt enough.

So if she brings it up again in this context, my strategy should be to validate her feelings, briefly validate her as a wife, but primarly put the blame of my behavior back on me?

Treat her respectfully and with dignity. Show her compassion, strength and honor.

You can do this, C.

Thank you for the kind words, and for spending so much time and putting so much thought into your responses.