Hi Tyler12, for me there are a combination of things. I know I have a part in what has happened. We had been building a house in a foreign country to us both and we both got exhausted and were not enjoying enough things outside of this as a family. This contributed to my W be attracted to a work colleague who had no responsibilities. When she told me near the beginning of the year last year, I made it to easy for her to come back into the relationship but I had asked for her to cut the contact with this colleague. As it built back up, we got into frequent arguments between Sept and Nov.
I was still hurting and not handling the situation, I had made a conscious effort to be more with the family over the past year but only tried to put them all first. I stopped caring about myself and got to focused on getting my W to cut the contact. Something she admitted that she hadn't been strong enough in doing. The hard part for me is that other than the arguments we were still doing many things together as a family, still being intimate with each other, we had just started counseling to help us communicate better as we both were not listening to each other well enough.
At times I'm not sure what else I could have done, except not getting caught up in the arguments as we both said things that are regrettable. However, my W has re-written a number of things in our relationship and made me into something I'm not. I have felt many times my feelings on things are never really considered and when she decides to not do something it has generally been because I have stopped her. She tells me I stop her going out and I can never be happy when she comes home, my issue at times was that she would be considerably later than she would say or I would not be able to reach her as she would go out to escape the family. However, if I was ever running late or she didn't know where I was, she would always call me asking where I am was and when I would be back.
There are probably times I should have stepped back and thought things through better but I also know that in the past year i have never felt as exhausted. I have feelings that my W would like an element of the single life back again, where as I consider myself a family man 24/7. I know I had lost myself and at times become distant and needing quiet within the last year in particular. Maybe it took this shock to my system to make me realize, I guess I just wish we had communicated better and worked on better comprimises to get what we both needed within this family and relationship.
