Did Not See It - But Should Have

[RDS]

To save my M it’s going to take a very long time and a lot of work.

You got that right RDS. The work begins with YOU. Here's a list to get started with:

1) No more blaming your W for anything.
2) Accept that her reality of past occurances (your verbal abuse) are completely true for her. Just accept it and allow her to have her feelings about it.
3) If you've raised your voice aimed at your W, you've committed verbal abuse. Accept it, apologize, and get help to NEVER do it again.
4) Throw away the calendar, the "very long time" will likely be years worth.
5) Look at this as a game, you call your own plays. Some plays will gain yardage some will loose. Stop calling the plays that loose yardage and keep playing the ones that gain. The road is long and you only loose when you quit.
6) Take your vision off of your W and fix YOU! You can single handedly fix this but only by changing your W's perception of you and you can only do that by growing, changing and maturing YOU.
7) Learn more about who you are and what your real needs are. Listen intently to hear what your W's real needs are.
8) Pray, rest, let go, and believe with every fiber of your being that your M can be saved, if you want it to.
9) Realize that this is a calling to a higher state of being. It's not about your M really, it's a calling for you to become the amazing man that you were created to be.

There's a good start for you!

COG

Thanks COG. I am trying to do everything you listed and one day I won't be trying to do that, I WILL do that. I vowed never to raise my voice to her again. I'm such an easy going guy and most people would never know me to raise my voice. I did it to her all the time.

My W even said she could see a warmth in my eyes she hadn't seen in a long time when we had lunch a couple of days ago and she also could tell in my voice the anger wasn't there anymore. Of course we both know it's way too early to talk R as she can't trust me. I even have to have time on my side to trust myself. It's so easy to say I've changed and become mellower but who is to say how I would react with the first disagreement we have?