Unsure what's next, what to do.....

[Wanted1]

What she threw out in the joint session really hit home with me. I think she over exaggerated A LOT of what she infers by my inactions, actions and words to her. Basically everything I do or say she takes the exact opposite of what I meant or intended which was so bizarre. The whole premises of what she said throughout the entire session was essentially that I controlled or manipulated her feelings throughout the entire R, she wasn't allowed to be 'herself' and I didn't support anything she does, etc. Something that was a complete surprise to me. I had no clue that was the case or that's how she felt. I tend to think a lot of it was a rewriting of our history but at the same time I understand how she could have felt that way and it makes sense looking back on it, just not to the extreme amounts she tried to portray.

That brings this question up that I am going to ask my IC next week but will also pose to you all: How much of feeling as though your thoughts and feelings are being controlled and manipulated by your S falls on you vs. the spouse that's doing the 'controlling'? She VERY rarely would say 'well I don't see it that way' or 'this is how I feel about xxx'. How can I know that her thoughts and feelings are different than mine when they aren't expressed? The more I think about it, some of that needs to fall on her for not expressing those to me to make me aware that she thought differently about something. Now, I empathize with her presumed response that she felt scared or anxious to share her thoughts but at some point she probably needed to be true to herself and standup for what she thought or felt. Which, ironically, is what I've wanted from her for a long time. That's the past though. Neither of us can change that and I think she's working through how to 'be herself' right now which is what gives her great pause it trying to work through all of this and work on our M.

Although I didn't agree with everything she said and she overly exaggerated a lot of it, I do see her point. I wasn't there for her emotionally. I wanted to be in the worst way but when she shuts down my mentality was she needed to come to me. It was 'her problem.' I didn't look inwardly and realize I was probably a major part of our emotional disconnect and broken communication.

I think those thoughts and feelings and my inability to look inward were probably overshadowed by the betrayals. As you all know, its hard to forgive you W for betraying you by having and A. Even harder when you (I) are too stubborn to realize that we should have gotten help with our M through MC or some other avenue after the first time instead of kind of sweeping it under the rug and trying to work through it all on your own which is exactly what I did/we did. I had never been to any type of counseling or therapy until a month ago. Betrayals like that nuke your self-confidence as you all know. I've tried to express that to her and have told her its hard for her to understand being in my shoes because I think you have to experience it to really understand what it feels like. And in my situation, rather than look at 'What can WE do to fix our M' I always had the opinion that she was the broken one and she was the one that needed fixed since she was the one that betrayed me. Totally ignorant, I know. It never occurred to me previously that she was reaching out to these OM for something I wasn't giving her - an emotional connection. When you couple that with the exterior validation she seeks because of the past sexual abuse in her life it's a recipe for disaster. I'm not trying to defend her actions. They were despicable and there are no excuses whatsoever to cheat. BUT, I do empathize now with how they took place. The exterior validation was something her therapist brought up to her that can be a cause of sexual abuse. She is also an Enneagram Type 3, which it's description refers to needing exterior validation. (If you haven't heard of the Enneagram Test before, google it, it's pretty interesting)

So, in the end, I think everyone sees their situation as 'different' and I guess everyone's is different. Lots of similarities, obviously, but just as much different as they are similar too. Maybe I'm wrong, and somebody can give give it to me straight if I'm not thinking logically about this, but since she really hasn't given me a BD yet, I'm not sure if DBing is effective, at this stage of my situation, since my W hasn't told me point blank 'I want out.' When the techniques associated with DBing are in direct contrast to what my 180s should be, I'm not sure if I'm at a point where I should be implementing them yet. Not all of them at least. After the conversation yesterday, I haven't brought up the R and don't plan to. I'm going to go with the old adage 'actions speak louder than words,' especially if I take her at her word that she hasn't made up her mind definitively. I will say it "appears" as though she's reaching out to me more just in the past 24 hours since the conversation. Maybe that's me over analyzing, which very well could me. Sort of wishful thinking. That could definitely be the case. I will say, after reading what she said, it's helped my positive attitude immensely and before I feel I was implementing the positive attitude whenever she is around pretty well. I have my first DB coach phone call today so I'm anxious to see what he has to say on it all.