Thank you for sharing all this information, Steve.
Your post distilled a lot of the key takeaways that I regularly think about from NMMNG, the ones that have driven my self-improvement this past year and made me really excited about my future.
Some personal thoughts I have:
1. NGs are vulnerable to accepting their partner's views as THE truth... which leads to further shame. And we justify it by thinking we are extra empathetic and compassionate. I actually think NGs need to tone down the validation more than DB would advise because of this.
2. Working on my own shame has been a huge step in my self-growth this past year.
3. Expectations in a relationship lead to resentment. Expectations on yourself lead to unhappiness as well. Like you I was a high-achiever and I think I used achievements as a way to feed my self-esteem, to an unhealthy degree. Now I work a lot on self-compassion, and accepting that I don't need to judge myself against some impossible standard.
4. I don't feel like my resentment led us down this dark path. My W harbored a lot of resentment and still does. She was unwilling to work through it in two round of MC. I can't do anything about that. I think it was the first of many obstacles we would have had to overcome. I had some resentment (SSM, feeling like she had zero interest in me while I was supposed to be there to support her 100%) that manifested in some passive-aggressive comments at times, but I would have laid it aside to work on things.
