zokasantaptamAnasa

[Fogg]

mutatio, thanks for the replies on my thread, I've been meaning to post on yours for a while but keep getting sidetracked with my own thoughts. Yes, the forgiveness from my thread did deal with my own also but didn't focus on it.

Forgiveness has been a reoccurring theme that's came up in my sitch since BD. I blamed myself at first for everything that happened, even her falling for OM, and it took me a while to work through all of it. Like all of us on the forums, we have failures in our M that led to its breaking down, so do our S's. I was a lazy husband and neglected my W and kids for years. I put myself into video games and while I was going to college i didn't get a job to help out on bills. I justified my taking a break because my W didn't work while I was in the military and my G.I Bill was paying for most of my college and student loans were covering our lifestyle along with her job. Me not working or pulling my own weight was an issue, even if it was reasonable for me to not work during that time my entitlement and the way I went about it were completely wrong. I let my W take on way too much of the daily responsibilities that put extra stress on her. I acted like a child when I didn't get my way. I could go on for a while with these examples but you get the point. These things led up to my W being in a position where OM's advances had an impact on her. When the miscarriage happened I tried to be there for her but after two weeks the grief pushed us both apart. Instead of being the man I could have been and helped both of through it I let it consume me also and I retreated. Small arguments started and I called her names, she did me also. I called her a bitch the night of BD because of the way she reacted to me over asking a simple question. She took the question as meaning something else and thought I was being an [censored]. We were both hurting and took it out on eachother. I blamed myself for not being strong enough to help her through that time period where we might have bonded from pulling through it together. OM began to happen and W hurt me, intentionally at times throwing it in my face early, maybe before she realized he was more than a friend to her. He made her feel good about herself, something I didn't do for a long time. He showed her he cared and things progressed. That's a condensed version of my story.

So while working through forgiveness for my W I had to accept a few things. She is human, just like me. We are all broken people, some more than others. None of us set out to hurt others but in our broken-ness we do trying to relieve the pain. Trying to fix ourselves, trying to fill the voids in our hearts and souls. So while working on forgiving my W, which I have been in the process of doing most of this year, I had to accept this. Nothing she did was personal to me, she didn't set out with the intention to break my heart and even if she did it still wouldn't have been about me. It was about her and her own pain.

I am building up to a point, I promise, lol.

So this leads up to my own forgiveness on the things I listed above. In the process of forgiving her I had to apply the same things to myself and accept why I acted the way I did, just as you do. We are human, we are all broken and we all make mistakes. We hurt others and many times they are the ones we love the most. Holding onto that blame doesn't help us move forward with our lives, it just keeps up stuck in the past. We accept what we have done, the damage it has caused and we try to correct the damage that was done. Sometimes that's not possible and we accept that also. Sometimes the best we can do is change ourselves so that our failures of the past don't happen again in our future. Learn everything you can about yourself, that's the best you can do.

Another point on forgiveness, its not something that just happens and your done. Its an ongoing process that you may have to come back to from time to time. You may feel completely fine one day and think you have forgiven yourself and 6 months later feel horrible again.

You aren't a bad person because of your mistakes, you are human like all of us. Something you mentioned in a previous post got me to thinking also.

If I don't pull a miracle out of my a$$ there's not much hope for this marriage.

You already said you were codependent I believe feeling responsible for fixing things is a quality of that. You also mentioned the issues with your father and growing up in a home with your mother and 3 sisters. This quite often leads to Nice Guy qualities. Nice guys tend to think if they do everything right they get the result they want and that's not how life works, that's not how DB will work either. You don't need to pull a miracle out of your ass to fix this. To me this means you see the outcome of your M being dependent on your actions. That you can fix this if you keep doing the right things and give your W space and time. That's not accurate. You can do every single thing possible right and your W may D you. The same time you may do everything wrong and she comes back. You do have an influence on this and can bust your D by giving her space and time but there are still elements of it that are completely outside your control. She has free will and the power to make any decision she wants, for whatever reason she wants.

The way I look at my M now is this. I have done much of what I can the last year in a way that could influence my W to come back. I have removed and corrected many of the issues that led up to my M breaking down. I have become the man only a fool would leave. These are great things and could lead to me and my W starting a new M. However, all these things are only 1/2 of the equation, she holds the power over the other 1/2.

You take too much of the blame for the state of your M right now. I also think you cant forgive yourself because you have tied the outcome of your M to your past mistakes. In your mind you feel responsible for fixing the M and until you do(by waiting and giving her time) you are still unforgivable by yourself. With that mindset you will never forgive yourself until after your W decides to work on the M. Since you have no control over her 1/2 of things now you really have setup yourself in a difficult position. You cant do that to yourself, its not fair to you. Fix the issues that led up to your M breaking down (that you have the power to fix right now) and let the rest go. There's nothing you can do about it other than continue to hurt yourself and that will never help anything. Your W is fighting her own battle now and you cant take responsibility for where she is.

You have some really good advice in this thread already, I hope it helps you. I'm still working through my own forgiveness, it may never be complete, but its better than it was just a few months ago.