Obviously my tone and way of addressing people gets under your skin. That’s fine. That’s your problem, hope you get over it. I don’t think I make open comments on one persons’ thread that I think necessarily apply to others. I agree there is not one answer that can cure anyone’s sitch or be applied exactly to another, but there are patterns, and those patterns are often consistent.
There is however one underlying theme that IS consistent across all people, all situations, all stages of recovery, and that is the consistent way in which people react to fear, anxiety, happiness, joy. Those reactions are only different in people with severe personality disorders. For the rest of us rational people, our feelings and emotions are all the same, and because of that, there is a level of predictability that can be applied.
There may be many, many different cases and patterns of those reactions, but the most basic premise always holds. If your H was depressed before the marriage went sour, then either he has a biological tendency toward depression, he has a larger psychological problem (and I never consider either of these possibilities in any of my posts), or he has a pre-existing issue, likely in his FOO, that causes him to be depressed.
But the pattern still holds. You are taking all this way too personally and inferring that I mean you to be a villain of some sort, that you are to blame for making your H feel disconnected and depressed. I am not saying anything of the sort. In fact, even if ALL his problems could somehow be directly traced to you, it would still not be your fault. You may have caused a lot of his pain, but you would be a victim too and only acting as you were conditioned to act. So why are you so sensitive about this? Perhaps you have not completed your soul-searching
My xH now states that his unhappiness/depression came first and was about his own personal issues but it morphed very quickly into being all about me and the marriage. He did not know or believe that at the time. It's only something he realized later after going through counseling on his own.
Makes sense. A typical pattern.
Granted our issues were not about sex but there were similar comments - I did not "make" him happy, my unhappiness with work caused him to be unhappy, etc.
Two points here… one is that there may not have been anything you or anyone else could have done to make him happy. The other is that you may have been able to do something, he might have been happy for a while, but it would have been at your expense. Neither is an option.
He now tells me that it was all BS. The fact that he began an affair somewhere in there only made the issues worse.
Yep, we’ve seen this pattern before. It has played out repeatedly on the MLC board.
He said that he was so absolutely sure that i was a horrible person and it was all my fault that he believed counseling would prove it. The fact that counseling didn't "show" that it was my fault was a very complicated problem for him.
Everyone one here who has gone through this raise their hand…. too many to count.
Yet so far I have yet to see one of those people move on to happiness after leaving their spouse. So if the theory was true for them, the ending of the marriage should have "made" them happy.
Isn’t that what everyone is saying on this board? Now I’m lost on what your original point was….
I just mention this because it is difficult when people talk in absolutes.
Don’t project. Say “It is difficult for ME when YOU speak in absolutes. It makes me feel like you are blaming me.”
OK, Ill try to be more sensitive to your feelings.
I wouldn't dare to assume that you, Cobra, etc. are incorrect in your evaluation of your marriage problems.
No, I wouldn’t make that assumption if I were you.
