Thanks Ginger. I am REALLY struggling with this, especially because of your comments. They cut right to the core because they are just so accurate, and it's NOT the kind of person I want to be. I'm ashamed of myself. I hurt to think that I caused her so much pain. Is that empathy? When I post here, I always talk about how awful it is TO ME that she is leaving and that I don't get to "have her" anymore. But there are so many more layers to it than that. So many regrets, so many realizations. I'm nowhere near where I should be in terms of growth and personality and character. But I swear I'm already SO much better than I was a year ago, to the point that if only she gave me that one last chance she'd be quite impressed. (But she said she had no chances left to give.)
I'm reading these infidelity blogs and I keep coming up with the same realizations: 1. being angry doesn't make it better. 2. the affair may have been the only way she was able to "escape." But it still hurt. 3. the relationship was dysfunctional anyway, and even if it weren't for the affair, she probably would have left me anyway, and that's what hurts the most, the leaving (along with the pain I caused her, for so many years). 4. they talk about red flags, deceit, narcissism, all those things that "cheaters" do, but I did all of those things, too. Sometimes it seems strange that I'm not the one who cheated. But I was unfaithful in different ways. Were we just not right for each other?
And this urge I have to tell her these things, to show her the changes, to beg her to take one more look...all of that is just me trying to control how she feels so that I will feel better. I'm starting to get it.
Last edited by burned; 01/10/1902:09 PM.
H: 35 W: 33 M: 11 T: 13
4/10/18: I discovered A and confronted ("BD1") 6/23/18: I moved out 8/31/18: MC ends ("BD2")