Pardon the brevity - I always feel bad when I get such thoughtful responses and don't respond in kind. I'll be a little tied up for the rest of the morning.
Originally Posted By: Mozza
I know it's clear for others, but to me it's just confusing. I don't see much except the usual daily life.
Well, yeah, that makes two of us. I was raised with the notion that all marriages go through rough spots and I observed several of them first hand with my parents. After my mother had a hysterectomy when I was 10, all I can say is that she was in a very bad mood for 2 years, and Dad took the brunt of it. But they made it through and thrived. So, when these problems in my marriage popped up, I was probably a little too quick to just passively think "this is just a rough spot" instead of engaging it head on. And, in fairness to me, I always thought STBX had a similar mindset. Lesson learned.
Originally Posted By: Underdog
I know plenty of you won't agree with me for this, but I'll tell you my secret. For 2 long, difficult years, I worked really hard on forgiveness. Oddly enough, forgiving him was easier than forgiving myself. I had done a post mortem, and while I would agree with Mozza that none of my crap seemed to be a deal breaker, apparently it was. The one thing I can tell you on my own post mortem summary is that many, many times I was unwilling to change the things that hurt him the most. I'm pretty sure that's why he felt hopeless about the possibility of reconciling. I didn't change for him. Yep, he was the catalyst and impetus, but I realized along the way that I was not a happy person. Anyhoo...
Thank you for another great post, Betsey. And I totally agree with you about the forgiveness. I know it in my bones. I know its not good for me, for my health, or for our parenting relationship to hold on to all the anger. Full confession though- I'm a ways off from that right now. Currently, I guess I'm at a place where I am still putting a condition on forgiveness, which is that I need to hear some sincere remorse. First off - I know that's not true forgiveness, and secondly, I know I'm not going to hear that any time soon. So - I'll keep plugging away and hopefully the time will come.
Hey - how about some more cheerful news! At D7s request, I took the training wheels off of her bike this weekend and taught her to ride it. There was a tense moment, when I didn't think I could wrestle the training wheels off (whoever installed them at the store was STRONG), but we got it done and she has joined the ranks of her bike riding friends.
