Help...Confused Newbie Pt5

[Accuray]

Too much psychobabble for you? I don't buy this "I'm just a simple guy" narrative, you're very self-aware, I know you get it.

Most people are not educated about this stuff when they get married which is why people run into problems. Getting yourself educated can be very empowering for your next relationship, with or without W.

One other thing that I do want to say: you're totally entitled to be angry at W.

W's actions have made you hurt.

When that first happens, most people blame themselves and feel really badly for quite some time, beating themselves up for their perceived shortcomings.

At some point, our brains go into protection mode, and we start to displace the blame onto the WAS, and get very angry with them and make them out to be a totally selfish evil villain.

Part of this involves telling ourselves stories, or adopting the worst possible interpretation about what the WAS says or does.

This is a natural reaction to protect ourselves and to help us process our grief.

You know what's interesting about that? It's exactly the same thing the WAS does. Around the time they leave, they feel horribly guilty, and at some point self-preservation kicks in, they start telling themselves that YOU are the bad guy, the nothing was ever good, rewriting history and getting angry at you.

If you look at it, its really two sides of the same coin and the emotional response is more or less the same.

So the bottom line is that you don't need anyone's permission to be mad at W, and you can attach that anger to irrational things if it helps you.

The important thing is to be self-aware, to be able to step back and gain some perspective from time to time, and not to get too drunk on your invented narrative.

Like all things, the anger will pass, and if you try to push it off it will just wait and hit you later. You have to go through it and you have to feel all of it, so feel free to vent and rant. It can be very healing.

Acc