Yeah, I guess you're right. I'm sure 'impossible to go back' plays into it, but the decision that they did make overshadows the other side. I guess that's where the keep the road home smooth comes in.
For my sitch, I think it was a combination of things that made her leave, but I look at it and I think I was near the bottom for the least of the reasons. Basically, I think she fell in L with OM, felt guilty about it around me, made the next step in the A and thought she could get out of our M and create a serious relationship with him, and no one would ever know what happened during our Marriage. Oh well, Its all in the past now anyway.
So in more DB fashion, I figured I'd go back and add some to the things I'm working on myself. It's actually quite simple...
Stop being a 'fixer' for sitchs outside my control: I need to fight the urge to offer solutions and do a better job listening and validating. I've had it engrained in me that if there's a problem that I should try and fix it. This works for most everything but people. So in essence STFU
Figure out how to be less judgmental with other people's decisions: Here's another on that I try to logically rationalize people's decisions and do a SWOT analysis on other's like I tend to do on my decisions. Geeky, yes....Non-emotional, yes.....good for my sitch, no. So for this it boils down to when in doubt STFU
Work on my anger w W putting our family in this sitch: This one is getting better by detaching. I still think I'm in a bunch of denial into what she actually has done to our marriage and deceived me for well over a year, plus other times in our marriage. I've never been an angry person, but I think the kids are holding me in check, in that, I know that being outwardly angry does nothing to help the sitch. Basically, STFU
Be more empathetic to other's decisions: This one is getting better also. As much as I hate to admit it, I can see where my wife got mixed up in this whole thing. As small as the issues seemed prior to this all starting about 2 years ago, I saw that she was having a rough time. I couldn't understand and tried to help her as much as I could (change work hours, do more around the house, etc.) However, I see that this was the time that she first started to shut down. When she would say something (she said this a total of 3 times in 1 year) like "MCS, our lives are so difficult" I would respond on why they weren't I should have just validated. Again STFU
More intimacy and emotion in relationships (I got complacent in our M): This is the main area that I see that I 'knowingly' contributed to our troubles. I was in a time in my life, that while content, was still trying to balance kids, house, work, etc. the last area there was our M. We did talk about this a few times and we seemed to resolve it (went to Hawaii for our 10 year Anniversary,) I didn't put enough effort in this on a daily basis. Little things like flowers, gifts, back-rubs, etc. basically went away.
Anyway, as I see most of these are tweaks to my personality. In the risk of sounding arrogant, I'm pretty comfortable with who I was/who I am and also had a high self-esteem before BD and after. However, I see as a H; I should have realized that W was not comfortable and her self-esteem was diminishing and I should have been there to help her get through it. The little that she expressed to me; I trivialized in my mind since it seemed to me like everything was going okay in our lives. Since these were far and few between, I attributed them to 'bad day' moods from her and not necessarily a fundamental issue that she was dealing with.
Last edited by MCS; 02/24/1512:38 AM.
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)
