New LBS - need advice, part deux

[apothem]

Whoops, forgot to highlight the bottom response and I added a bit more:

Hold your head up, but don't become self-righteous. I could understand, after having three women to cheat on you, but I hope this experience won't harden your heart.

I've never held my head higher in life than I am right now. It's a great feeling having my confidence back along with addressing my codependency. Those two things alone have made me realize my self-worth, something I questioned frequently in my last few relationships.

My heart has not hardened, although, I will admit for the first few weeks after my wife dropped the bomb I thought I would never love again, largely because I didn't want to be vulnerable again. But, I have since overcome those feelings. I believe we learn from our failures, not our successes, and this has been a very eye-opening learning experience.

I actually performed an exercise with one of my therapists where we wrote down the character and personality traits of the last three women I've been with. There was definitely some overlap which helped me realize I was not the issue. In this specific case, in addition to the traits my wife shared with those women, she also lacks maturity and perspective along with having a VERY difficult childhood (I won't go into detail, but it is among some of the worst things I've ever heard) that she never dealt with. She refused to go to therapy and wouldn't even tell her own mother.

Knowing all of this has made me realize I can't fix others (my codependency, doh!), but I can fix myself. I've had numerous friends and family members who have known me for a long time compliment my changes, despite me never telling them I was making them. It feels good knowing they notice the changes because it shows me that what I'm doing is working.

I'm confident in saying that I'm not self-righteous, at least not anymore. I used to always have to be right and believed myself morally superior to others because of stupid things like never having been drunk, never doing drugs or smoking, never cheating, etc. I've since gained A LOT of perspective through therapy, counseling, coaching, and talking with family and friends. I've come to understand that sometimes things happen in life that you can't control or in some cases resist. That doesn't mean you are any less of a person than me. At the end of the day, I believe everything happens for a reason and the universe will deliver those to me who belong around me.