Introduction

[TJT]

In hindsight, she was insecure and needy, and I didn't do enough to "feed" that.

I never THOUGHT my H was "needy", although maybe I noticed elements of insecurity. But I never imagined it would be such an issue. This also goes back to my H not communicating. There are a ton of things that I don't think he ever planned to share that even with my inquiries over time, he chose to just keep inside for whatever reason. Given he later said "you should have known", meaning I shouldn't have stopped asking (per his requests for me to stop...) I see that behavior as a diversion tactic now. He was dealing with it in ways he probably knew I wouldn't approve of, and wasn't willing to work on it WITH me, so therefore no communication aside from projecting the manifestation of problems onto me to make himself feel better about his inability to face it.

But I was raised to judge my worth by my salary, big mistake. I was so proud of myself; she felt all alone. Maybe it's a guy thing? Or maybe it's because when I was at work and I did something nice, I got praised, which I like, whereas at home I got a lot of gruff. (I'm slowly starting to see things more clearly from a distance, almost 8 months post BD1.)

I do see the pressure for men to be the provider. It's definitely ingrained in our society and I hate that, just as much as I hate the traditional limitations placed on women and certain things being associated with our value. But, I definitely don't understand why a man can't see the differences of work/impact/praise at work and those same elements in a relationship, which has many other variables, including their own behavior. My H worked all the time, every weekend, multiple jobs, for almost our entire relationship. So I totally identify with feeling alone, because he honestly seemed to like being at work more than with me. AND I accepted it (because to your point, I thought he just really liked it and I know we were also saving for a lot of things), AND still I'm the one who got BDed!!

One specific example of the work/home praise issue is we hung a security camera for our home when we first moved in and H helped rig the wires up nice and neat so they were out of the way. I praised him for how good it looked and how it was a great idea the way he did it (with matching color zip ties). He told me that once at work he put something electronic together with a lot of wires and took a picture for his boss, who then told him it looked like crap. So my H said he took the whole thing apart and re-did it to look better....

Two points here:
1) If I were to have said "this looks bad, can you redo it?" I would have been the equivalent of the wicked witch to my H. Not just in that moment, but it would get filed under this long-term mental list of "sins of my wife".

2) Even despite having done the exact opposite and praising H for his work, it clearly didn't have had the same effect as someone he's not around every day praising him for it.

I think part of this is unfair expectations. People start to expect that they won't be questioned by their spouse, or if they do, that it means something way more than it does. Whereas at work people see it as more of a transaction than a relationship, and if someone says you did something bad, you can look at it more objectively (not in all cases, but it's more acceptable in that context).

While it seems minor/simple, I totally see how this can escalate to really cause friction in a relationship. What's frustrating is how so many people don't realize that it is fixable, or even LOOK for solutions before ascribing these kinds of issues to the other person taking them for granted and now everything [censored] and they now suck and are a different person I married, and now I want a D, vs. other things impacting the interactions that can be changed or better yet, reminding themselves of all the good things. Also, the seemingly more and more acceptable behavior of people being disposable since you can just find someone else who will be different, right?

I read a LOT when my sitch first escalated about misconceptions of good marriages always making you feel "happy", and how just because you don't feel the warm fuzzies sometimes doesn't mean you are no longer compatible or can have a great relationship. It just happens. You get into slumps. Life throws things at you that pull out your irritable side or your fears or whatever. I'm generalizing the issues of course and totally not trying to discount the real problems we each have in our Ms, but I'm just saying - there were totally things about my H and our M that I haven't liked. I ALWAYS felt it would be worth it to stick with him and grow and love him anyway. That's why I married him.

IN FACT, before we got married, while we were engaged, I will admit that an acquaintance started to get friendly with me and made me rethink if I was choosing the right person...but the point is I remembered all the things I loved about my H, all the work we had done after many years of dating to grow together, and I did CHOOSE him with intention. I remember how during that time I questioned my "feelings" of not being totally head over heels for my H, but guess what? Because I chose him and deliberately put all of myself into our M, those feelings absolutely came back.

I can empathize my H questioning or not being totally thrilled with me in some phases of life... but it really hurts that whatever things he didn't like about me or our M were SO bad that he felt he didn't want it anymore, especially without half the fight for our M that I would have expected from him. I definitely think that's related to the short-sighted warm fuzzies of a new relationship making someone think what they have is now inferior without looking at the big picture.

That's still not a comforting thought, for someone codependent like me who still seems to think that she'd be happiest with me.

I'm with you on this one, 100%. Exactly how I feel. Not because I think I'm perfect, but because I know how willing I am to work with him on things. I don't feel like there are many people out there who are THAT loyal and truly committed to another person (clearly, I mean look at what I'm willing to stick with him through!) Maybe I'm wrong and over-romanticizing myself, I don't know...again just doesn't make sense to me unless the whole relationship was garbage fire to throw all that history away.

Sorry to let you down, but I'm not even close to getting past those fears. They are THE thing holding me back right now, and they seem to get more intense the closer I get to D because that means I really will have to face them and I won't get to hide from them by staying in my M.

Well, I just realized from this response that we are almost in similar places in our sitch. BD for me happened in May. So this doesn't totally let me down that you have the same fears, for some reason I thought your sitch was further along.

I am definitely stubborn with my emotions as well and can't even fathom being excited about the "freedom" that will come with no longer being in my M. To me the loss feels like so much of a backslide in life that the time it will take to rebuild or to even find someone to work toward rebuilding with that I feel like I will love as deep as I love my H feels impossible, and that it won't ever live up to the future I imagined having with H. You know, because of that whole part where you never imagined you'd have to do it kind of thing, and now that you've imagined it one way how can you just erase that and start with a fresh mind?

I know everyone says we can't know that and we may find something better and many people do...but I'm in the same mindset right now where because I'm so stubborn and passionate about how I feel, I don't know if I believe I can get there. I do try to think of ex-boyfriends and how I felt with them while I was dating them vs. how I feel about them now, to convince myself it's possible, and that helps look at things a little different BUT it also doesn't seem like a fair comparison because of the much shorter lengths of those relationships, maturity level, etc.

In summary, I didn't take M lightly. I don't think any of us here did. For H to just be like, meh, no big deal, or him being so confident he'll survive, I just want to know what DNA that is, and can I have some?? But I have to talk myself out of not wanting to be a loving, committed person anymore, because I know that's not the "right" option and the more I think like that, the more I definitely hold myself back from the possibility of something good in the future...but legitimately, I don't know what I would do or how others on this forum do it when they get hurt like this multiple times. If this were to happen to me again I think I'd definitely have to be committed....like, to a psych ward, not a person lol.

Ugh, another super long post. I was doing so good for a few there