Life 2.0

[Painter]

Had another long chat with WH today. It was just pleasant small talk for the most part. Some info about his life now with OW. He doesn't ask about my life, except when I told him it feels a little micromanaged at work and I may look for something else, then he took an interest and sympathized.

I told him about my thoughts about how in our early relationship, and through several years, I didn't realize that he felt that he wasn't good enough. My attempts to 'fix' or 'improve' was experienced by him as criticism and judgement. I said I was very sorry about that, that I wasn't sensitive to his feelings at that time. He was very amazed and I could tell he felt validated. He said it was exactly what he felt.

The problem was that I didn't realize that he saw everything he owned as an extension of himself. If I wanted to fix something in the house, he saw it as if he wasn't good enough. He puts very high value on everything he owns, even if his friend who is a professional contractor tells him to discard a tool that is simply broken beyond repair, WH will hold on to it and insist it is fine.

I see how I contributed to his resentment building over the years by not realizing how much he identified with his belongings.

This wasn't a part of explaining away his choice to have an A or in any way mitigate or excuse it. But it was good for me to talk about it and acknowledge it. It has bothered me and it came up in C yesterday. The C said that regardless which flaws or problems we had, the difference was that I was willing to do the work, get help, while he was not willing or able to look at things and work through them. That's right, but it doesn't mean I shouldn't look at myself and try to work on tendencies I have that are not positive in a relationship.