This need not be the end.

[Barry]

Thanks Joe, I'll update tomorrow on how it goes.

25years, you're right, I never got around to posting that. It's been intentional over the last week that I haven't because I wanted to enjoy the positive emotions I've had for a while. I can't keep putting it off though.

I've been such a typical "Nice Guy" for all of my life. I never thought that it could be a bad thing.
Unfortunatley, I've never felt like much of a man to be honest. I've been immature in my actions, thoughts and communication but really only with my W? At work and around friends I'm confident, funny, and mature. My W is the other way around. She's mature around me but immature when around her friends. I've procrastinated all my life, not finished many things that I've started, and have never gone after things I wanted...just for me.

My W has said that I've been controlling and maybe I have to some extent. I think it's more that my W has always been the one to make the decisions, from what to have for dinner to where to go on holiday. My answer would always be the same - "I don't mind babe, whatever you want". I lost my individuality and just became half of a pair. SHE actually had all the control.

Since the start of the breakdown, I think I tried to make an effort to take some of this back but rather than trying to control myself and be an individual, I wanted to control HER and turn things around. I wanted her to feel like she needed me like I did her.
I've always put my W on a pedestal and she has been the No 1 thing in my life. As sad or as wrong as it sounds, she was put above my kids, my work, and certainly myself. She found this stifling - she told me that last year.

She's always handled the finances. To the point that sometimes, I wouldn't have a clue what money we had...even if I'd just been paid! Even though she is amazing at making sure everything gets paid on time and that we have enough left to live on, I always wanted to be more involved with it. It felt wrong that I wasn't (and since we separated, I've obviously had to do all this and I've felt empowered by it).

I've felt for such a long time that I loved her more than she loved me. I'm not a bad looking guy, but she has grown more beautiful over the years and looks better now than she ever has. I've felt that she was too good for me, and that in turn caused me to start having negative thoughts about her desire to be with me. As I look at it now, it was all in my head. My thoughts made me act differently towards my W, and she felt stifled by my neediness. And I was needy. I felt I needed her with me as much as possible because I felt weak. I felt I needed W to have me in her thoughts all the time like I did with her.

What I wanted was for us to feel the same about everything. It was a recipe for disaster as we've ALWAYS been very different. Our tastes in most things are different, and that was part of the attraction I think, that for all our differences and struggles, we still loved each other and would be together forever. The differences magnified over time though and it drove a wedge between us...I/we let it.

I don't want to get too graphic here but we've always been different in our sex life too. I always wanted more physical love (and yes, I would always settle for bad sex rather than none). She has never had a high sex drive and it became a mechanical, predictable part of our M. I also suffer from PE and it has sometimes been litteraly less than a minute before it's over. I used to focus on foreplay to try and make up for it. She always said it never bothered her but I could see the frustration in her sometimes. It made me feel terrible. All I wanted to do was please her...again, another Nice Guy trait.

She told me last year that she felt that on the weekends, I would try to get her drunk so that she would do things that she wasn't comfortable doing. Sometimes this was true. One of these was masturbating as part of our foreplay and I pushed it too often. She told me that she had never even done it alone (and wasn't comfortable with it) and that she didn't want to do it whilst I watched and joined in. I persisted though - not every time but a lot of them. This fantasy came from watching porn online and having unrealistic expectations. It wasn't a regular thing that I used to watch it. It was a way of release from tension without forcing myself onto W when she didn't want to though.

It was so different years ago. Although I work at the same place, I used to be a blue collar, working shifts, 12 hours a day, 7 days a week. I worked hard to provide my family with whatever was needed and we fought our way out of a huge amount of debt. It took many years to get out of that debt, living off such a minimal amount. At the time, it was hard work but now I look back on it, it was our happiest time together. I felt respected by everyone because I worked so hard, both physically and the amount of hours.
We had 4 lovely children that we spent time with. I did as much as I could with them but my W felt like a single parent sometimes. It really felt like us against the world.

Around 6 or 7 years ago, I was offered a position working in the office. Better pay, better hours, better job. I'd worked shifts all my adult life and had missed so much of the children growing up. I decided to take the job to better myself and to be able to start living a "normal" life where we could spend more time together as a family and as a couple. It was great at first, but the transition for blue to white collar was a challenge for me. It's a fairly stressful job but I succeeded in making the change. I was always physically fit in my previous job (all manual labour) and I looked good. I did put some weight on (ok, more than some) when I started sitting down all day but my W wasn't particularly bothered about it. At the time, I wasn't either. Anyway, I lost all the weight (W lost a lot too) and it was probably our happiest times.

We started to talk more seriously about "The Plan" that we'd had for so many years in having "our time" once the kids were older. We did start to do some of the things - travel, spend more time together etc. Then we hit some financial issues and the money just wasn't there to do the things we wanted.

When W started working, it was great at first. This had always been part of "The Plan" and it gave her her independance as well as bringing in some much needed cash. I thought we were going to get back on with the plan once this started but she changed. She wanted to go out more yes...but not with me, with her friends. I didn't take the changes well and became withdrawn, miserable, manipulative, condescending and moody. This pushed W away even more but I kept on and on, never really thinking that she would just end things. The control I was trying to take back was ruining my M and I never even saw it happening.

I had what should have been my wake up call last year when she did just that, and tried to end it. It tipped me over the edge. I did everything wrong then. I wish I'd have found this forum, and the books back then, maybe I wouldn't be here now?

Maybe I would. My W has gone through significant changes herself in the last 18 months (typical MLC stuff). This, coupled with my peronality taking a huge hit for the worst has turned her completly off the idea of having a R or M with me.

The sad thing is that I honestly believe that if she felt like she could do all the things she wants to do in life, and I was more like my old self (confident, funny etc etc), she would want to stay M to me. We've had a good life, R and M up until 18 months ago (she agrees with this). She can't see that I'm changing for the better because we are having NC, but I really am. It's not for her although of course I want her to notice. I am adapting, changing, and growing into the man I always wanted to be and at this stage, I don't even know if I can do that if I'm around my W.
I DO want to R with her but I too want to walk this path now I've got my shoes on!!

I've rambled enough for the moment and the story is a little mixed up in the timeline. I've just typed as it came out.

I have some longer term 180's, but for tonight's dinner meet-up I need to..

Smile more.
Keep the coversation light with no R talk.
Really listen to her.
Be kind (instead of nice!).
Be assertive and confident.
Laugh with W.

I'll be happy with any improvement on the current sitch tbh. She hasn't wanted to spend ANY time with me at all for the last two and half months. I miss my wife, my lover, but most of all I miss my friend.

Barry.