Can I Save My Marriage Alone?

[CanBird]

Reading DR. I'm so tired at the end of the day, I don't really have the energy to read as much as I'd like to, but I am reading a little every night.

One thing in particular, that struck a cord, was saying I love you. What about it? Before BD, leading up to it.. I said it a lot! Is that a bad thing? I never thought it was. Growing up, we said I love you a lot. In my marriage, I always said it before we go to bed, when we went our separate ways for the day, when ending phone calls or text, or just at random because I was feeling lovey. I expected him to reciprocate asap, was disappointed when he didn't, and would repeat "gesture of love", until he returned the gesture. Looking back, wow! I can now see that that was kind of needy and annoying in a way.

When our rough patch started (2 yrs ago) I realized, I was the one that always said I love you. H would say it back, but I honestly can't remember him saying it first. Then I started just making a "kiss noise" to him, in place of me saying "I love you". Eventually, I just stopped saying it as often because I thought why should I?

Where am I going with this? We think differently, we act differently, we show our emotions differently.

H is away at sea until November. My focus is saving our marriage because that's what I want. When he did the BD, I listened, but I also said all the typical things one says when faced with a BD. You name it, I probable said it. After that first conversation, and H confirming his BD, I did read articles that said, LISTEN more & say less, so that helped. Our last recent conversation, I WISH I would of listened more and said less. (I wasn't active on this site yet, didn't have DR) The connection was horrible. He's at sea & I'm on an island. Not the most ideal connection; very frustrating. I did a bad thing and added to the BD by asking questions that have already been asked. I don't want to relive this conversation so I'm going to stop talking about it.

Moving forward. One day at a time.