Where to begin?

[Dawgs]

First, thank all of you for the solid advice! I wish that I had found this site much, much earlier.

So, I really don't know what to take of yesterday's meeting. She wasn't attacking or anything of the like - that really isn't in her nature. When subject of change came up and he asked her what I needed to change - she brought out her list of my good and bad (she is a very detail-oriented person). And yes, the bad stuff came out - the worst of it centered around the grudge/pissing match between her sister and I.

So, before I started seeing my own counselor, I wrote the sister a letter asking for forgiveness. I did it, I realize, to not only try to clear this between us, but also to maybe forgive my own self for holding a grudge. There was never any intention of doing it for my wife - it was all to help me with my own issues.

As I said, I have been seeing my own counselor to deal with my own issues. It seems that the statement of childhhood stuff does carry over into adulthood is true. Learned some stuff that I didn't want to see - after all, what guy wants to admit that his mom is the root of it?

So, her telling me she wanted a divorce was an eye-opening and soul searching event for me. Its as if it made me do a 180 because I came to the realization that I didn't like what I had become and I don't want to be that anymore. One of the things that she has said is that she is afraid that I will revert back to the old ways. I hate those old ways - but, and partly due to that childhood of hers, she doesn't believe that I can change - in fact, her words yesterday when that topic was brought up was "I feel that he is making these changes because his back is pinned to the wall." What I wanted to tell her is that all of this made me see a lot of things in myself that I don't like and I am working on myself to become a better man.

So, back to yesterday's session. The therapist walked on both sides of the fence - when he learned of the letter to the sister he said that could be one of the things that saves this marraige; yet, at the same time he said to her that he doesn't know if it can be saved - that it is totally up to her forgive.

The therapits told her that she has to look into herself and see if she can forgive for all of it. And her main statement was - "I feel that he didn't love me enough to help me when I needed it. Now I feel that he is just doing this because his back is against the wall." It seems that those two things are the roadblock...

I don't know if this was a good first step or not. What do ya'll think?