I Was a Jerk (Part 1)

[Ready2Change]

There will be more convos. I put my two cents. Hopefully you can use some of this next time.

First, regarding telling the kids, she wants to tell them right away. I asked her what she was planning to say, and W said 'that we have decided to D, that we love them, etc etc." I said we have not decided anything, You decided. I won't lie or try to mislead them.

Perfect.

W replied that we should not be blaming each other or talking poorly about each other, its not good for the kids and if forced she would explain that I treated her badly, that I was mean to her, and that she has been very unhappy.

H:"W, I am sorry for hurting you in the past. Looking back, I can see how horrible my behavior was. I want us both to be happy."

I agreed that we should not give the kids specifics, but said I will not lead them to believe this is my decision and that I want this. I told her she can say "we are getting D" as a factual statement, but not that we have decided to. I also told her this is one of the most important conversations we will have with the kids and I want her to write it down first so I can see it and edit it. We don't read from a script, but put it in writing so we can see how it sounds.

Perfect.

Regarding my treatment of her, I validated and expressed that I understand what I was doing, and the reasons behind it. W said she was not innocent and I asked how so. W said that "apparently" she has been a raging beeatch to me for years.

My X wife uses "apparently". Someone has told her you called her this. Man up and apologize for this immature behavior.

H:"W, I am sorry I called you this. I was immature and frustrated. I see now that we were not communicating properly."

W then asked for an explanation of her behavior from my perspective. I recapped what I told her many years ago - that she has a nasty mean streak and criticized me relentlessly, that I asked her to get counseling and she didn't, that I asked her to talk to her family about this part of her personality with the hope she would listen to them when they told her yes, you can be horrible, but she never talked to anyone, and I told her I grew to be miserable, withdrew from her and developed some real ahole behavior as a defense mechanism. But that I realized now my response was not helpful to the M.

I think this is OK. Maybe less details about her. Your goal right now is to make her think differently about you. This will lead to her feeling different about you.

W said that my bad behavior pre-dated the time when I say she started her major criticism of me, which puts us pre-M. I asked why did you marry me?

H:"I have done some things in the past that I am not proud of. I am sorry"

W then asked me if I thought the M could be salvaged, and I said I don't know.

H:"I am not sure. I want us both to be happy. I believe we owe it to our kids to work on the issues that got us to this point. If it saves our marriage or not, it should at least help us co-parent."

It was a very very calm discussion on both sides, almost clinical and matter-of-fact.

Perfect.