Bear this in mind - the typical WAS is in a depression. They don't know WHY they are depressed, so they look around for an answer. The first thing they see is their spouse. And of course there are always SOME things that irritate you in a marriage. So they decide YOU are the reason they are unhappy. Especially they decide this if they have already started an affair with someone that is giving them rushes of infatuation. They feel better! It must have been you!!!
Often, in their search for justification for their affair, they will come up with ridiculous things. My ex told me I "walked too heavy" - and not only that, I "taught our daughter to walk too heavy"!!!! Now first of all - I checked with several people and no, there is nothing unusual about my gait. But if there WAS, and my daughter had the same gait, wouldn't you assume it was genetic? What kind of crazy person thinks I was giving our daughter lessons in walking heavy to annoy him???? Someone who can't find any other excuse for his cheating.
One woman here, I remember, was 5'8" 135 lbs - and her H told her he left her because she was too fat!!!
Now - validating is still a good approach. You can validate his feelings without taking responsibility on yourself. The examples given above were good.
Also- bear in mind, he might be a narcissist. If so, you having a back problem and no longer being able to bowl with him is an intolerable annoyance for a narcissist, where everything is about THEM and you having any illness or disability does not evoke empathy but irritation.
Yes, you might have gotten a little preoccupied with your back pain and a little comfortable in the relationship. But a GOOD partner would have been solicitous of your health, and able to tolerate a short period of less excitement in a long term good marriage. I doubt if you had done anything different that the result would have been any different. This is not likely to be about you.
Also, his alcoholism plays a role. We don't know which is chicken or egg - did he start drinking more heavily because he was depressed, and left the marriage to be somewhere that he wouldn't feel guilty about drinking so much? Or did he leave the marriage so he could drink more? Who knows? But it's definitely a problem.
Don't believe half of what he says - watch what he does. It's good to examine your role in the marriage so that you won't repeat mistakes in the future - but like most marriages here with MLCers, you were not the cause of this. His own issues are the cause. You could probably pretzel yourself into the perfect woman and he'd still come up with some other excuse.
And you're absolutely right - a healthy person experiencing those feelings would go to their partner and try to repair whatever they thought was wrong in the marriage first.
