Advice Welcome, separating and W moving out soon..

[jedi]

I'm really curious, what would you say your shortcomings were in the M?

This one is tricky, because frankly I simply don't know for sure. I didn't press a lot during the initial 3 week break around BD, but basically the tone was that something was missing in the M, had been all along, we should not have gotten married, and ILUBNILWY.

So, what I think are the issues, after some serious reflection on my part, could very well be nothing like what W thinks. I've not pressed for more detailed info at this time since talk of R is frowned upon. I have been tempted to ask my in laws what their take away is of our issues, but I'm not sure that's any better than asking W directly.

But in my opinion, it boils down to this:

1: Romance and SL suffered for us.
I believe in my heart this is all on me, based on my smoking habit which W did not like from day 1. I was cognizant of this initially, and wouldn't smoke for hours before I knew I would see her. As time went on, especially after M, this turned into me not caring at all about how long it had been. I told myself she accepted it or we would not have married, but after much reflection I've realized I pulled back romantically due to fear of grossing her out based on smell or taste of cigarettes. And as my lack of caring grew, my pulling back only increased. So for example, kisses weren't as passionate and I didn't try to initiate in our SL out of the fear of being unattractive based on my habit, but continued my habit all the same. It was only after I quit that I started to appreciate what it's like being a non smoker in proximity to smokers. I have never wanted anyone more than I've wanted her in terms of romantic and sexual attraction, but not showing this due to the above reservations likely has caused serious damage.

2: Minimizing her emotions and being a 'fixer'.
You asked me early on if she may have felt I dismissed her emotions, and I think it's spot on. I had a hard time just listening, encouraging her to be her and make her own choices in life, and always wanted to say "oh that, here's the fix for that". I thought I was being helpful, but in hindsight I can see how I was not.

3: Financial "control". Financially, I paid the majority of our bills out of my pay and her contributions all went into our savings. However, I had a fair amount of debt and would pull large chunks of savings every few months to pay that down. it was working for us this way, up until I stopped wanting to do 'stuff' together because I was focused only on eliminating debt. As that went on over time, I didn't want to talk about vacations, date nights, or any spending of money because I was focused on a date for debt payoff. I didn't reach this level until after M. Naturally, if I felt I needed something these rules magically didn't apply.

2 and 3 merge for me into something even larger now that I've really put thought into it over the last 6 weeks. It was all so innocent, not malicious by any means. I didn't even know I was doing it. I thought I was taking over certain parts of our life together for the better good, for a long term financially stable life together. I was essentially pausing the romance of our M until we hit this point of 0 debt, and then we could really start living.

On top of that I latched onto fixing her, and she didn’t need fixed. She needed a partner to build a life with.