Wayfarer: I thought your first post was excellent. Vulnerable, introspective, and honest. Thank you for sharing.
I do disagree with some of your second post. I’m generally concerned with the popular notions of “toxic” relationships that seem to be selling a lot of books these days. I believe in marriage as a place where two people accept each other and there mistakes and grow, both personally and together. But that’s just my perspective, not everyone needs to share it and it would seem my Ex didn’t believe it was possible with me.
So I started working through the annulment paperwork with the Catholic Church. If you would like to find it Google Form 100 Catholic annulment. It’s got 30 questions and it found some of the to be really good and insightful, though a bit sad.
I would describe it like an investigation of a crime scene or an old fashioned school report on the marriage. It includes detailed questions about courtship, family of orgin, communication styles, and the history of the marriage.
It will take me hours to complete properly but I’m already learning and seeing places where the marriage failed and where I failed in the marriage that I hadn’t recognized before and I wish I had.
I think my IC has really helped me become more empathetic as well as a desire to do so and some books that I’ve been reading. I credit some of Gottman, Brene brown, the book “the lost art of listenning”, as well as studies of the enneagram.
Wayfarer, what’s really sad to me, as Michelle points out in her book, is that I have been working on making the changes my Ex wanted for years. But, like you alluded to in your second post, she viewed all of it as a grand manipulation. If i did good it was manipulation, if I made any misstep it was Scott’s true self - now that attitude does create an air of toxicity. But if my ex could have paused and maybe trusted, maybe gotten vulnerable, and maybe stuck with it, she could have had the relationship she wanted.
