So, upon reading another post on this site and the response form Sandi I have now realized that I have nice guy syndrome! I have suspected this for a few months now, guess I was in denial. Attempting to educate myself as to my faults in my M I came across a book on NGS, not only did I have a couple symptoms I had all of them! My W and I early on in this sitch went to Retrouvaille, of course this was her attempt to say she tried to save the M but she was in denial as her EA and her PA had already started. During the retreat weekend we had to write down family of origins stuff, this is when I started to understand me and the type of person I was, just didn't know how it related to NGS.
I downloaded an audio book on NGS and listened to it, what and eye opener! I am the prototypical nice guy, I did everything to please my wife as I couldn't handle any sort of rejection on any level, that included bottling up my anger when something she did upset me. This happened all the time, I avoided all conflict with her and usually lashed out and tried to manipulate her and my kids to get a result that I wanted. I did not do this intentionally, it's just how I was and still am. I talked with my IC about this and she had me pegged for this the first day she met me but she wanted me to discover this. With that, where do I go from here? I have started to implement my change away from this behavior with my kids, my W, and whoever else I come in contact with, I need to learn how to say NO for starters, not and easy thing for me to do! I'm also looking to get involved with a NGS support group for men and to reconnect with some friends I used to play hockey with that I gave up on years ago.
