Sorry its been a little bit of time before I replied. Big GAL weekend, pretty much got the house back to normal before the kids come back tomorrow. Its funny, I realize how much comfort I got out of the house the way it was. It was subconscious as I was shopping, but I pretty much got similar things to replace what she took.
So, I read through your posting from yesterday and learned a few things.
1) I can start to see my judgmental thinking as I read your responses. Since you were doing it 1st person, I found myself thinking. WTH; how can you leave your M without even understanding how you feel and how come you can't even tell me what you're feeling right now....then I had the lightbulb go off in my head. I always thought that was me being 'logical' but it really is being judgmental.
2) Your responses helped me realize that I can't even remember when my W would respond back in any way to let me know how she felt or didn't feel. I did get complacent with gaining comfort talking with W about the day, kids, etc. But what I'm talking about is the deep emotional stuff. I felt like I was sharing how I felt, but she wasn't sharing how she felt. Classic WAW responses, but looking back through it, we did have discussions; she just kept most of the emotional stuff to herself.
3) That gets me disappointed and having doubts in being hopeful, especially since she says she had EA's before in our M. This one's been going on for over a year, I guess the other ones were a while ago; I didn't realize them at the time. I knew she was good friends with these people, but that's all that I figured it was. My 'best' friend is a woman and W and I have always been just fine with that friendship, so I didn't see an issue with her being good friends with men. (diatribe starting...)
I guess there was a hint of an EA of my friend to me one time when she was having M troubles. She was (very) drunk and said something to me about how she should have married me, I responded that we were good friends that are very similar people, R takes people that are different to work well. Told her she's got a great H, that cares a lot for her and this time in her M would pass. Well, it did. She actually talked a lot with my W about her M and W helped her through that time. Since I was uncomfortable in the discussion that night, I told my W what our friend said and let my W know what my response was.
When W talked to me about OM and the EA; I validated and reminded her of our friend's comment to me and said that this can happen to most people. My W's response was, "Well yeah, but MCS and friend never took it anywhere" Not the exact quote, but it was weird because it almost seemed like she was trying to be self deprecating on her own actions.
Back on topic....
However, I do look back at the times she said she had EA's and they were in times that we were having stresses, not M but life. I'm wondering if this is systemic and I just didn't see it. W may have felt for a while she couldn't emotionally connect with me to the level she needed me to. Ugh...
4) I understand there is no excuse for waywardness, nor is there any excuse (besides abuse) for a spouse to up and leave the M and furthermore the kids without trying to work things out. However, W has done that; there's nothing I can do about that. I don't blame myself for that. However, 25years said something a bit ago on a thread "A WAS never goes back to the M that they left." That resonated for me, because while I believe (myself) the waywardness caused her to leave w/o working on the M in hopes to capture OM; I've been struggling to identify what I needed to change to show her that our M would be different.
5) Went out to dinner with one of my good friends tonight. Anyway, we were talking about the sitch and he said to me. "I can't believe that W doesn't see the changes in MCS. MCS has done a total 180, not that there was anything wrong with MCS to begin with, but its amazing what MCS has done over the last couple months." He didn't go into specifics, but it actually troubled me a little bit, because I don't feel like I've changed that much and if I did I'm still not quite sure what was wrong with me to begin with. I mean, I'm much more in touch with my religion than I was; but I feel like the same person, values, views, etc. I guess I have re-prioritized my life and the biggest thing is that I'm much more empathetic and talk about my emotions. I don't know, he used the term "180" which got me thinking DB; so it made me be a little introspective
I guess, he was saying in a round about way, "MCS is becoming a man that only a fool would leave" I guess I'll end on that tonight. Still work to be done.
M:36 W:37 T: 15 M:11 S6 D5 BD: 8/10/14 IDLY: 8/12/14 S: 8/13/14 (she left, I stayed w/ kids) D Mentioned: 10/15/14 Confronted about OM: 10/15/14 EA: ~4/13 PA: ~10/13 She filed: 8/15 (not final)
