Muddle's Muddy Waters

[grasshopper]

I then told her that although I really didn't like the reasons she was doing what she was doing, I really liked the fact that she was facing her personal demons and taking control of them in order to persue her happiness.

Again, open, direct validation of her, and she responded.

She openly acknowledged that my "letting her go" was making her feel more close to me, and that it would make it more difficult for her to go because she has that much more reason to feel guilty.

Isn't that what DB is all about? Letting feelings happen as a result of our changes and not forcing them? Good for you.

So, needless to say - there's a bit of encouraging behavior on her part. She's still so deeply entrenched in this that I'm sure we still have a long way to go. Even though it felt really good to be close again last night, I KNOW that my happiness isn't intertwined with her perspective on me because I'm no less happy today than I was yesterday. This to me spells serious progress on my part.

Huge I would say. Great job, and keep it up. You are detaching with the best of em!

GH

[MuddleThrough]

I apologize in advance for the length of this post – lots of interesting realizations and happenings I feel are worth journaling.

It was an interesting weekend, as far as my sitch is concerned. I found out my brother is in some way becoming an accomplice to this whole thing (taking a trip with my W’s friend/supporter – who happens to also be my brother’s XGF – who he is torn up about and always playing emotional games with and about). I came home Friday night, and the three of them were downstairs, drinking, W on IM with OM. I said hello to my brother, and then turned around and went back upstairs. I know I was short and “weird” (as they called me later) but I didn’t want to be in that situation, so I went upstairs and finished my book (“What Happy People Know” – read it, it will really change your life). I had a great time by myself – it’s not like I went away to sulk or anything.

Eventually, my brother came upstairs to chat – not about the A, he hasn’t brought that up to me – drunk chat, about how he thought he was over W’s friend, etc. I really wasn’t all that interested in talking to him, partially because I was resentful about his involvement with the A, partially because having a conversation with a drunk person isn’t all that pleasant, not to mention I didn’t have any sympathy for him regarding the subject matter. I do regret that I didn’t communicate directly to him that I wasn’t interested in talking to him - something I need to get a little clearer on in my own mind: when to tell people directly what I think or how I feel about them. Anyway, later that evening, W told me that she didn’t want me to have a problem with my brother because of something she was doing. I told her that my relationship with my brother was between him and me.

To explain this a little better, my brother wants to go to see family in Europe (so does my W apparently) and last time we went (me, W, our son, my brother, and his then GF – W’s friend) W’s friend got close to (latched onto) some of my cousins. So she wants to go back to see them again. W is basically tagging along with my brother. W kept trying to explain to me that he is neutral, that he wants her to be happy. My perspective is that if he were neutral, he wouldn’t be contributing to her effort. I “know” that he is trying to please her friend, because he wants her back, so he is willing to sign onto whatever her agenda is.

This drives me nuts – all the talk of people on one “side” or the other, as if we’re at war and conspiring against each other. W’s friend told her that she couldn’t understand why W would tell me the things that she does – “it’s giving information to the enemy”. W is always talking about how I have so many people on my side and she has so few. Even her mother, she says, cares more about my feelings than hers. She doesn’t support her, she says. I have said in response to this that she does support her, she just doesn’t support what she is doing. I think W is so attached to this scenario that she can’t make the distinction – the situation is her and vice versa.

Anyway, Saturday I took our son and had a great day with him. W wasn’t feeling all that well, seems like the anxiety of trying to plan this trip with more people now is taking its toll on her. She called before I got home saying that she was going to go to her mom’s and hang out - with the two – and drink and stuff. Well, she got home at 2am, woke me up and told me that the other 2 had gone to her friend’s house instead of staying over because I “made them feel weird”. How tragic. These are the same two that were fighting in the street the night before after midnight, that we both were annoyed at. Go figure. I try so hard not to look at these people as contributing to the destruction of my family, but to do so, I end up belittling them more and more. It’s a no win situation: either they have some malicious intent, or they are too dumb to see the consequences of pursuing this path. Well, it’s not my issue.

On to yesterday. W started talking to me while we were at my parent’s house. She said “if we get divorced it would break your mother’s heart. I don’t want to get divorced. Can we not get divorced, even if I take this A to the next level?” I told her that I didn’t want to be divorced, that I didn’t want her to “take it to the next level” but I was not going to change what I wanted for my life contingent on what she did, at least not right now. She was really appreciative of this, telling me that this was an expression of real love, giving her this freedom.

Then she brought up “plans” again. I told her to let me know when she had plans and I would let her know if I could accommodate her by getting time off to stay with our son. This sparked a huge dramatic ordeal. Basically, this was one of those situations where she was “wrong” because she based her argument on a premise that conveniently absolved her of responsibility. She tried to tell me that it was my responsibility to take care of our son because there were no other options (no sitters) and that it wasn’t about me doing something for her, but rather me taking care of my responsibility to our son. Well, to me, she is his primary caregiver – she agreed to this responsibility when she decided that she wanted to stay home and care for him. If she wants to go, it’s her responsibility to find someone to relieve her. Should I be willing and able to do so – yes, I would be doing her this favor. She flat out expected me to do it, and wouldn’t waver in her perspective.

This went on for quite some time. When we went home, it still persisted. I wanted to by asked – I want the fact that I have a choice in this to be recognized. W spun this into me trying to hold this over her head, to control the situation. She got to the point where she was crying – and went downstairs, taking her pillow and blanket with her. So, I let her go, and went on with my evening. She eventually came upstairs, and started into me about how I really express my lack of love for her , because I’m not concerned with her feelings. I didn’t come downstairs after her, and this made her feel like I didn’t care about how she was feeling (calling it complacency and passivity). I told her that I respected her decision to remove herself from my presence. I empathized with her feelings – but I told her that I couldn’t make her feel differently, which she acknowledged. It’s so frustrating to me, because she seems to want to see me doing whatever it takes to appease her and make her feel better (and it looks to me like utter manipulation on her part), and yet thinks less of me when I do appease her. Yet, she escalates her childish behavior when I stand my ground. I don’t want to contribute to her feeling badly about me, but somewhere she has learned that feeling badly about me entitles her to have me change my actions.

Eventually we came to the point where things got a little smoothed out. She recognized that all I was really looking for was to be asked. I think she was so afraid that if she were to give me the choice I would choose to make things difficult for her. I mentioned to her, at one point earlier in the day, that I felt like she though of me as an extension of herself – when she wanted something done, even in conversation with other people, it would come out as “I’ll just have H do it”. This to me seemed like an extension of this thinking, where I was expected to do it because it needed to be done and she wasn’t going to do it.

We also had a conversation about how she’s allowed herself (her own words, very encouraging to me) to become dependant on me to do things for her. She felt that this was a really bad scenario because she lost a lot of herself. I told her that I thought we did indeed have a problem with codependency – to which she responded that she felt it was one sided, that she was dependant and I wasn’t. Later in the day when she talked about staying together, I said something about a new relationship – she was a little confused about what I meant, and when I told her that we couldn’t go back to the way things were she said “I hope not”.

So, I guess it’s not really the best DBing – heavy on the R talk (though not really initiated by me), but I think it was generally towards a more positive place. I’m not sure if my actions are really improving things – because the difficulty here is that for the sake of this issue at hand I want to make her feel safe and secure in our relationship – to some degree coddling her and bending to her every whim, but through my self examination and my examination of the issues in our relationship, I’m very aware that playing into this codependency is very bad in the long run because it removes her choice from the equation – by guilting and obligating her to stay in the M. The choice to stay is very important to her – and I feel that she can’t make that choice as long as she feels dependant and we are so intertwined. I have taken a lot of steps towards detaching, but she remains in the same sort of place in the function of the relationship to her. It’s frustrating, but I think that what change is occurring is for the best, even if it makes W somewhat uncomfortable.

[grasshopper]

Ok Muddle, I'll indite you along with me, Frank and some of the other "good" DBers around here. One thing that I think makes us "good" is the fact that we express ourselves pretty well in our posts...maybe too well sometimes.

My point is that MOST of the time, what I have in my posts is pretty much exactly what I want to say, the way I want to say it. It's honest, well as honest as it can be when I revise it 5 times before hitting the final continue button. It's honest, but to say that I don't craft my words VERY carefully would be a lie. I do craft my words and thus, to a certain extent, the image people have of my sitch, more importantly, ME.

SO, what does this all have to do with you? Well, I think you too express yourself VERY well in your posts here, and to others on their threads. That said, and sorry for all the preface, reading your last post, if it was anywhere close to being an honest representation of the events you describe then I think you are wrong in your assessment that you did a poor DBing job. Like I said, you are good at crafting your posts so if this was an edit job to make yourself look good (don't think so) then fine, but if not...

I think I said a similar thing about another recent post where you thought you did badly. I think you are doing a WONDERFUL job of DBing. You (and RB for that matter) are dealing with VERY tough things with strength and honor...and TRUE unconditional love. You are to be commended for that.

In each of the sitches you describe, and in each conversation, you were direct, open and honest. When you felt like you could not be, you removed yourself from the equation. You acted out of self-interest first, love second and in each case, without "attachment" to the outcome.

I think you COULD be seen as catering to your W's whims, but I think you said something a few posts ago that was REALLY important about how you discovered yourself actually seeing this trip and all the "OM" stuff as somehow important to W in terms of her establishing her own identity and self-esteem, however f-ed up the means she was using to do it.

Nobody can ever say that they condone an affair and be anything other than either a liar or an idiot but that's not what you're doing here. You are practicing the ultimate DB mandate of letting them go and releasing all notion of control over your W. You are giving her all the rope she needs to either hang herself, tie on to OM's boat or throw a line back to you so you can pull each other back from a painful potential outcome.

I see you as one of the few who seem to truly embrace the individual reality DB presents us with, one of self diagnosis, self control and NOT trying to control those around us, ESPECIALLY our WAS.

As we see here every so often, there IS a debate to be had about whether or not this method is the "right" one versus more heavy handed tactics but I think there is no doubt (at least in my mind) that IF DB works to the extent that the WAS returns on their own volition to a fundamentally more centered LBS, then the resulting reconciliation has a MUCH better chance for success then if the LBS somehow forces a decision and return.

You are taking the path less traveled for sure and I think you are doing it to the best of your ability. Please, keep it up.

It’s so frustrating to me, because she seems to want to see me doing whatever it takes to appease her and make her feel better (and it looks to me like utter manipulation on her part), and yet thinks less of me when I do appease her. Yet, she escalates her childish behavior when I stand my ground. I don’t want to contribute to her feeling badly about me, but somewhere she has learned that feeling badly about me entitles her to have me change my actions.

I understand this ALL too well. My W does the same exact thing, as I poste the other day. If I appeas her, I think she sees that as weakness but if I don't, she acts out against that as well. It's a no-win sitch unless WE figure out how to just BE and let her reaction to it be a non-factor. MUCH easier said than done, especially when we are at least somewhat in the business of caring what they think...

I’m not sure if my actions are really improving things – because the difficulty here is that for the sake of this issue at hand I want to make her feel safe and secure in our relationship – to some degree coddling her and bending to her every whim, but through my self examination and my examination of the issues in our relationship, I’m very aware that playing into this codependency is very bad in the long run because it removes her choice from the equation – by guilting and obligating her to stay in the M.

I'm not sure I totally get what you are saying here (maybe you're not as good as I thought, lol). I THINK you are saying that by still catering to her whims, it is making her feel guilty for leaving, whereas if you were a complete a$$ it would make leaving easier, thus somehow more "her" decision.

The choice to stay is very important to her – and I feel that she can’t make that choice as long as she feels dependent and we are so intertwined. I have taken a lot of steps towards detaching, but she remains in the same sort of place in the function of the relationship to her. It’s frustrating, but I think that what change is occurring is for the best, even if it makes W somewhat uncomfortable.

I get this a bit more. I have the same issues with my R and W. To me, this is where we have to depend on our OWN changes to carry us and the R to a new place, a less dependent place.

I KNOW that my changes are for good and for real and I THINK my W won't be able to help changing herself if she is in an R with "this" me. The trick is both in the maintaining of the "new" me AND having her trust in that change long enough for her to accept her own need for change in the R.

All tough stuff but necessary stuff indeed.

GH

[MuddleThrough]

Thanks, GH for the induction - now I have to live up to that!

I’m not sure if my actions are really improving things – because the difficulty here is that for the sake of this issue at hand I want to make her feel safe and secure in our relationship – to some degree coddling her and bending to her every whim, but through my self examination and my examination of the issues in our relationship, I’m very aware that playing into this codependency is very bad in the long run because it removes her choice from the equation – by guilting and obligating her to stay in the M.

I'm not sure I totally get what you are saying here (maybe you're not as good as I thought, lol). I THINK you are saying that by still catering to her whims, it is making her feel guilty for leaving, whereas if you were a complete a$$ it would make leaving easier, thus somehow more "her" decision.

---

Yeah, despite being able to articulate myself fairly well, I often feel I can see both sides of the coin without their being a clear better or right side. The situation being what it is finds me in a position of being aware of much more in our R than I ever was before. I am constantly fighting internally over whether I can fix/address anything in the R while it is in the state it's in. And I mean some of the deep seated issues that my W might not agree are issues at this point. Codependency is one of those major issues that I have been really reflecting on as of late.

So, I guess what I'm saying is that changing my behavior in ways that alter the patterns in our R - things that tie into problems like codependency - will undoubtedly affect my W by shaking up HER security and safety. If the codependency thing, while being bad overall, is about immediate security at the expense of personal freedom/accountability, then by addressing this - refusing to accept responsibility for my W's actions/feelings, etc., I am putting her in an unfamiliar position. So, I have the choice between discomfort and a long term improvement of our R (which I might be jumping the gun even thinking about at this point) or making W as comfortable in a R that isn't "right".

The codependency in my R seems to me to be a way of ensuring our security in the R because we are NEEDED, rather than wanted. In this way - I mean that by continuing to feed into my W's dependance, I am somehow disallowing her the "choice" to be with me, because she can and might look upon it as her NEED and not her choice. Does this clarify?

[grasshopper]

Does this clarify?

Yes but...

So, I have the choice between discomfort and a long term improvement of our R (which I might be jumping the gun even thinking about at this point) or making W as comfortable in a R that isn't "right".

I don't see this as an either/or situation. I think you can do both somehow. I know I deal with a lot of the same issues and I KNOW I still support her dependance on me, but one thing I do differently now is ALSO TRULY support the attempts she makes to be independent. I have dropped my desire to control her and that alone has made her feel a lot more free.

Your W's freedom to make her own decisions is just that, freedom. You can't temper that with any sort of partial control. You either let go or you don't but in either case, I think you can still "be there" for her and not be enabling her codependency.

As usual, it's a fine line.

The codependency in my R seems to me to be a way of ensuring our security in the R because we are NEEDED, rather than wanted. In this way - I mean that by continuing to feed into my W's dependance, I am somehow disallowing her the "choice" to be with me, because she can and might look upon it as her NEED and not her choice.

You don't "allow" or "disallow" her choice. You only react to them in ways you see fit. I know what you mean though. You want to make sure the sitch is such that she FEELS like she's making an independent decision. The problem is that you can't control how she feels so stop trying. Eventually she will have to come to grips with the fact that you are growing beyond her and the sitch and the YOU will be capable of living independently from her, even IN the marriage, if not out of it and in turn, I think she will have to decide if she can do the same thing.

These are DEEP issues, ones that probably shape both our marriages but I think simply being aware of them is a HUGE step in the right direction because if you're like me, you had no conscious idea that things were this bad.

GH

[MuddleThrough]

I don't see this as an either/or situation. I think you can do both somehow.

I don't see any other real alternative - I do need to figure out how to do just that. But, as you say, it's a really fine line, one that I have to err on either side of often enough to find where it really lies.

I know I deal with a lot of the same issues and I KNOW I still support her dependance on me, but one thing I do differently now is ALSO TRULY support the attempts she makes to be independent. I have dropped my desire to control her and that alone has made her feel a lot more free.

The part that's so difficult for me here is that my W HASN'T been making much of an attempt to be independant. She has been relating to me much in the same ways she always has, just with a much more alarmingly negative edge to it. In fact, I find it hard to do GAL things without telling her exactly what I'm doing and when - and, even if she's opting not to do anything herself except talk to OM, she still resents my freedom to do for herself. I think a lot of this has to do with the helplessness of being unhappy - the lack of recognition that there are endless choices in front of us at any point in our life. I think my W recognizes that I don't want to control her, and that I haven't been an overtly controlling person. In fact she told me that she feels so dependant on me because I have done for her what she has asked me to do. I think she somehow KNOWS that her dependance is her issue, and she's scared to do the hard work of fixing this, rather than just starting over with a clean slate.

A major issue for my W that she brought up again yesterday is that of me "making" her feel like a child. I told her that I certainly didn't think of her as anything less than my equal, an adult. I finally got her to give me an example of this, and it really drove something home. I have alway thought, defensively, that her feeling like I treated her as a child was because she acted like one. Well, it has become more clear to me that in some way she FEELS like a child - inadequate and dependant. So, she's very sensitive to being treated in any way like a child. Now, during our conversation, I told her that I wanted to know when she felt this way in response to something I said or did, because I wanted to be aware of whether there was something in my actions that I could change to avoid her feeling this way. The thing is, she told me that the thing that made her feel bad is that we were in the grocery store and they were giving out sample quesadillas (my W loves these) and she had just been going on and on about how she should have eaten, and she had decided to shop before we went through the drive through. Because she was so hungry, and because she's got social anxiety disorder, she was in a bad mood in the store, telling me how stupid all my decisions were, and how stupid I looked pushing the cart. If you ask me, really childish stuff. So, I happened past where they were handing out the samples and I picked one up for her. Well, THIS made her feel like I was treating her like a child, like I had to provide for her needs. I thought I was being thoughtful. So, yes, this is HER issue, I have no doubt. But, I am sure that there are ways that I can be more aware of her moods and vulnerability. My actions mean different things to her depending upon her mood.

This treating her like a child thing pans out into another one of our DEEP issues. She told me that because of this dynamic, she doesn't feel like we are or can be lovers. Who want's to have sex with their father? Well, like I said, if she becomes more secure in herself, steps up a few levels and takes care of these issues that make her feel like a child, this dynamic will change - but what can I do about this?

So, she says to me yesterday (and I have no doubt that her saying this is a GOOD thing): "I only wish that I could be attracted to you". I think the root cause of the lack of attraction lies in the codependancy issue. I feel that on some level, she views me as a continuation of herself. I think if she were to see me as more whole and seperate, there would be more opportunity for being attracted - because you can't really be attracted to yourself, especially when you feel badly about yourself and view yourself as an inadequate child. What have I gotten myself into?

Something else is frustrating me - and that's this sense that I get that she feels that because she has grabbed all the power in the relationship, I think she feels that I need to satisfy her that I'm changing, that all her problems with ME need to be resolved. This idea is so flawed because within her interpretation of my actions, HER thought process is involved. If she started to work on herself, or on the relationship, she would recognize that all these problems she attributes to me are her own, or a shared dynamic that we BOTH need to address.

These are DEEP issues, ones that probably shape both our marriages but I think simply being aware of them is a HUGE step in the right direction because if you're like me, you had no conscious idea that things were this bad.

Bad? I prefer to look at it as "this way", lol. I think this sort of judgement does no good for my outlook on the situation. Things are what they are, maybe they're not what we'd like them to be, but I wouldn't call them bad

[grasshopper]

Bad? I prefer to look at it as "this way", lol. I think this sort of judgement does no good for my outlook on the situation. Things are what they are, maybe they're not what we'd like them to be, but I wouldn't call them bad

Well, I am all for being positive, but if my marriage were not "bad" before, my W probably would not have done what she did and we both contributed to that. I have no problem admitting that things were bad, therefore, they can be MUCH better.

I my case, the codependancy was/is BAD. It is not good for eitehr of us and one of the key defining things about the state of our "old" marriage that I DON'T want to go back to again.

That's only speaking for me. Your sitch may be a bit, or a lot different.

GH

[MuddleThrough]

Well, I think it's nice to think that our Ws wouldn't have done what they did had the M been better - but, this is unknowable, and As do happen in good Ms. I guess this is also in some way and attempt at controlling your universe, by projecting your personal power into the past, saying that had you done something differently, your W wouldn't have made the choice she did, that your actions would have influenced her choice if you had been more aware of the state of your M. Maybe, maybe not. This is something I fight with too, and I fight with the idea that should we reconcile, there is no way that I can A proof our M going forward, because I have no power over my W.

I have trouble with good/bad being applied to M. I think what works in one M may not in another, and because this is such a subjective thing, there's no way to apply such a finite label on it. Also, I think there's a lot of merit to using terms like "left something to be desired" or "I don't like", because in the end, it's all just a matter of opinion. Things can always be improved - but our perspective of bad/good is just that, a perspective. Should your W die today - God forbid - would you go through the rest of your life thinking you had a BAD marriage? No, I have no doubt that you would tell people that you had the incredible opportunity to know this wonderful woman intimately, and althought your M left some things to be desired for both of you, it provided you with one of the best opportunities for self growth in your life. I know this is extreme, but I think it's so critical to live in the grey and avoid the illusions of black and white thinking.

Maybe this is all just semantics - but to me, it's important. I sincerely hope my opinions don't offend you.

[grasshopper]

No offense what-so-ever.

Well, I think it's nice to think that our Ws wouldn't have done what they did had the M been better - but, this is unknowable.

Well, I think it's nice to think that our Ws wouldn't have done what they did had the M been better - but, this is unknowable, and As do happen in good Ms

---

I don't think we are really arguing here, but I will make my argument (lol) directly about my sitch and my marriage. I KNOW because I have done the hard soul searching AND my W told me in no uncertain terms what motivated her to have an affair. Sure, she could be lying but since she told me AFTER I had already basically figured it all out on my own, I suspect that I am right and I suspect my W was telling me the truth about the missing intimacy, my being gone too much, the lack of "attention" and all the rest. It was PAINFULLY easy to see what was, yes, BAD in our marriage, just as it was very easy to see what was good.

No, there is no 100% guarantee that things would be different now if only I, ME alone had done things differently just like there's no guarantee that they will be different NOW with mainly me doing the work to change things.

...and As do happen in good Ms.

Really? I think by definition an A, and I am not talking about a drunken one night stand, but an A of the sort we are usually talking about here, defines a bad marriage. I disagree with you. A's of that sort do NOT happen in "good" marriages...IMHO.

I guess this is also in some way and attempt at controlling your universe, by projecting your personal power into the past, saying that had you done something differently, your W wouldn't have made the choice she did, that your actions would have influenced her choice if you had been more aware of the state of your M. Maybe, maybe not.

You're right, I have no real idea that things would have changed IF I knew the real state of the marriage from her perspective. Actually, she tried to tell me and I never listened so in effect, no, thing were NOT different after I knew. I just kept on believing that my marriage was perfect because I refused to understand that to her, things were VERY different, and yes, bad.

I know I cannot undo the past, but I can learn from it and try not to repeat it. In my marriage, there were some very fundamental mistakes made by BOTH of us and I can only correct my part of that and hope she does the same. It's all I can do. I have no power over the past, and today, I understand I have little real power over her other than that of the power of influence.

This is something I fight with too, and I fight with the idea that should we reconcile, there is no way that I can A proof our M going forward, because I have no power over my W.

Well, again, we somewhat disagree. I don't think there is any way to 100% A-proof a marriage though some say there is. I think it IS possible to do a hell of a lot better job than I did in the first ten years of my marriage and I think that if I did that, and my W reciprocated that effort in any way, that we could do a lot to prevent each other from straying. Again, this comes down to the idea that A's happen in good marriages, which I don't believe but I think it's important for you to understand that I KNOW perspective is everything, and GOOD in a marriage IS subjective, as you say.

Should your W die today - God forbid - would you go through the rest of your life thinking you had a BAD marriage? No, I have no doubt that you would tell people that you had the incredible opportunity to know this wonderful woman intimately, and although your M left some things to be desired for both of you, it provided you with one of the best opportunities for self growth in your life. I know this is extreme, but I think it's so critical to live in the grey and avoid the illusions of black and white thinking.

Well, to use your example, how many funerals have you gone to where you knew for a fact that the person speaking HATED the person being laid to rest? I know I have seen that so I think your analogy is a bit unfair. EVERYONE speaks better of the dead. We are not talking about our spouses dying, we are talking about them cheating and while I have no doubt that any of our friends that know us and our sitch would say that our marriage is flawed and my W was wrong to cheat, none of them would say so at either of our funerals.

In the end, I think you and I are very similar and I too don't believe in black and white thinking. I live in the world of grey but there are certain aspects of my "old" marriage that are just this side of black in terms of MY perspective and I will work tirelessly to change MY contribution to those things. Labeling them "bad" is just my way of categorizing those things which I believe need to change in my life.

GH

[MuddleThrough]

Sure, she could be lying but since she told me AFTER I had already basically figured it all out on my own, I suspect that I am right and I suspect my W was telling me the truth about the missing intimacy, my being gone too much, the lack of "attention" and all the rest.

You know, this strikes such a familiar chord with me - my W also talked about things that were missing, lack of fulfillment, etc. The lack of something, to me, can't ever be a bad thing, because by definition, it isn't anything at all. At most, it's unmet expectations, that may not have ever been properly communicated. We didn't beat our wives (at least I didn't ), so I still see it as things to be improved, but they weren't necessarily bad.
This perspective thing goes both ways. You and I had very different experiences with the way our Ws came to their opinions about their Ms. My W came to see things in such a negative light AFTER the A was in full swing. To me, this meant that the A had changed her perspective, and because she wanted out of the M in order to persue the A, she looked at our M from an angle she never did before. It took me some time to realize that this did not make her wrong about what she saw. Although her perspective and motivations caused her to veer more negatively when viewing an aspect of our M than she used to, and than I did and do, it doesn't change the fact that those things she's passing judgement on exist.

...and As do happen in good Ms.

Really? I think by definition an A, and I am not talking about a drunken one night stand, but an A of the sort we are usually talking about here, defines a bad marriage. I disagree with you. A's of that sort do NOT happen in "good" marriages...IMHO.

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I have read that before, but I'm sure you're well aware of the variety of opinions on As out there. I think you have to look at how you define good. No M is perfect, and even if you have wide open lines of communication, there are never any guarantees. To me, an A is all about personal choice. The person who chose to have the A, chose to have the A for their own reasons, whether it had to do with the M or not. I think that quite often, an A is an attempt to fill a void in oneself, one that can not be filled by marriage, or any relationship for that matter. It's quite possible for anyone to have this void in a good marriage if they are not happy with or in themselves. So, what's a good M then? Well, in theory, the best M is 2 HAPPY people living whole lives choosing to be together. I think the happiness is what prevents As - and as we all know, that's a personal responsibility.

You're right, I have no real idea that things would have changed IF I knew the real state of the marriage from her perspective. Actually, she tried to tell me and I never listened so in effect, no, thing were NOT different after I knew. I just kept on believing that my marriage was perfect because I refused to understand that to her, things were VERY different, and yes, bad.

Perspective is everything. You see what you want to see, on some level or another.

Well, again, we somewhat disagree. I don't think there is any way to 100% A-proof a marriage though some say there is. I think it IS possible to do a hell of a lot better job than I did in the first ten years of my marriage and I think that if I did that, and my W reciprocated that effort in any way, that we could do a lot to prevent each other from straying. Again, this comes down to the idea that A's happen in good marriages, which I don't believe but I think it's important for you to understand that I KNOW perspective is everything, and GOOD in a marriage IS subjective, as you say.

I think intrinsic to your statement is the idea that you both agree on what it takes to make a M work, and that you are both committed to doing the personal work to ensure that your lives are happy and whole, and that you maintain respect and love for your life together. This is essentially the same responsibility that we all took on when being M. What happened then? Did we have false expectations of what M would be? I think this is a big part of it.

Labeling them "bad" is just my way of categorizing those things which I believe need to change in my life.

Yes, of course this is what it comes down to: what does your perspective DO for you? What is the utility of the way you frame events in your life? I think some people need to be on the brink of disaster in order to "fix" something, and thinking of the old M as bad does that for you, motivating you to change it. At present, I would like to think of my M as what it is, with significant room to improve on a good thing. This allows me to be primarily motivated by love and not fear.