Sorry for the many and long posts - since W is away, have had a bit of time and needed to dump/journal...
I've given much thought to what actions (or inactions) of mine contributed to the A. I had come to the conclusion that neglect had a big part to do with it. But, looking back over the past year - back to just prior to the A - I didn't start neglecting W quite so much until I had started distancing myself from her due to resentment over her R with OM. I do still think the neglect paid a part in it, but not such a major one, now. It probably was a cycle that fed upon itself, but I don't think it was the trigger. I think, before then, I had lost the ability to truly listen to W. I had gotten so wrapped up in my own concerns and interests, and W had started diving hardcore into politics at a level I don't usually concern myself with, plus I had started ignoring current events she would generally bring up, to the point that I just couldn't focus on what she was talking about or provide meaningful feedback. She eventually found what she needed with OM. He provided that meaningful conversation that I wasn't. She would still, occasionally, try to talk to me about things; and, we'd have brief conversations (not bad, not meaningless, just brief). But, I very rarely would initiate these sorts of conversations. I *did* bring up topics of interest to me, and you know what? Now thinking back, I generally got the same response from her that she was getting from me - brief, just "okay" conversations, with mostly a lack of interest in what I was talking about. I think we just got out of sync with our external-to-family interests. But, this doesn't have a to be detrimental to a marriage, dammit! So, I think another one of the contributing factors along these lines was that we had virtually no social life. We moved out to the burbs, away from most of our old friends, and rarely were able to get them to come out to see us. W tried to maintain at least a couple of close female friendships from that group of friends, but it just wasn't happening. I think that W used to get what she needed in regards to conversation and social interaction from coworkers and friends - now she had no coworkers and few friends. Since she's been going to school, she's been at home, alone, most of the time, with primarily time for only online friendships. Along comes this close online friendship with soon-to-be-OM, and bingo. …. All conjecture on my part, and I'm not sure what I could have done about it by changing myself. Perhaps I could have ensured more interaction with our friends, not leaving planning of such things to W. The easy answer is that I could have boned up on everything that W was interested in talking about, but I tried that to some extent, and it takes too much of my energy to do so, such that I end up sacrificing my own interests. I just don't know on this one, and don't think I'll truly figure it out until I can talk R with W, and now isn't that time.
Now, we're talking about trading off weeks to go hang out with our old friends on Wednesday nights, when they all go out together. Although it was mostly W's idea (copying some of those friends that have kids) to do the trade-off, I'm embracing it as my own. While W is doing yoga on Wednesday nights, this hasn't come to fruition, but she should be switching to a different class soon enough, and I fully intend on taking advantage of it, even if she doesn't. And, if she does, then I do hope that she'll find some of that much desired interaction, and see that she didn't need OM for it - I don't expect that to happen, but I can always hope.
