I thought everything was okay....(Part 4)

[MCS]

I keep thinking about this whole 'not feeling safe' thing that she is using to prevent us from talking. I'm not sure why it bothers me, maybe because I don't understand where it is coming from.

I don't want to discard this feeling that she says she has, I want to understand it. The only thing I can guess is that this is part of the justification that she had in doing what she did. I bought into this before I knew about OM, but her reasons were all over the place and were pretty trivial. I then felt that she felt this way because of not knowing what my reaction would be about the A. Since then, it seems like this is just a pre-canned excuse. For a month we've been interacting a lot better, then when MC states the progress she defaults back to this same statement. I wonder if the fact that we were progressing caught her by surprise.

I guess if I look back, the A wasn't a new thing that caused her to leave right after it started, this has been going on for a long time. Interestingly, at one point about a year ago I caught her in a flat out lie. It wasn't about anything horrible, but I asked her why she felt she had to lie to me. She said that she knew what I would say, so she didn't want to tell me. I see that this was as she was starting the spiral of OM and I let it go at the time and didn't think anything of it, but I guess she spent a year actively trying to deceive me and everyone. She needs to get herself through that.

In fact when she later told she has pursued OP during various stages of our relationship, I realized that there are some serious internal struggles she has. This is not based on something with me or happened recently in our marriage. I'm not quite sure why she told me this, I thought that it was a good sign as she was identified her own issues but I also wonder if she's using that to justify in her mind that she never was in love with me in the first place.

Its almost like this is part MLC for her. I think she knows that I would support her in some of these areas she didn't want to address herself. In our lives we always had a good ability to use each other to guide us during our struggles. However, I think she was (or still is) not ready to address these issues. She had a rough childhood and took a bunch of responsibility earlier than needed due to her parent's divorce; her dad leaving their lives for the most part and her mom re-focusing just on herself when her kids were in need. My W identified this at about 14-15 and start to really care for her younger siblings. In fact, at one of the original MC sessions, she said she felt just like she did back then. She's told me most of this is because she was overwhelmed an I think that she has defaulted to the pattern that her Mom had. This wasn't MCS original thought, but was told to me by my SIL.

I just wish I (or someone) could help her. Seeing her this week and how she looked shows me that she's struggling. I keep reminding myself that's a good thing for our sitch, but then it dawns on me that this is the person I've cared for most in my life.

Lastly, I figured out that at a minimum the friendship with OM is still ongoing even though the A is not public. The OM's GF doesn't know still. This makes me feel worse because as I said to the MC; W doesn't realize that she's chasing the person that continues to use her, while the person that is waiting to support her is being discarded. I just feel really bad for her right now. There goes my 'protector' trait again. I guess I can't worry about that.