My list

This was gonna be a blog. But I am on my I phone and the blog feature won''t work on that. So have to post this on the forum. Pain is intense today...searing...deep inside my stomach. As I posted yesterday morning, I started to backslide after she left for London. She called in the morning yesterday. She asked if I''d got her message ("you are very, very handsome, stranger" and why I hadn''t replied. I said I had got it... but was confused by it. She said she did not want to confuse me and that as my wife she wanted to tell me I was attractive? Well, I didn''t get into it...felt teary and ended the call before she sensed that. Fecked me up a bit. Decided I had to do something with the three days at my disposal. My son and I jumped in the car and made the road trip to my Mum''s. I''m staying here until Monday. Didn''t know what else to do really. It was that or combust.

So here we are. She hasn''t called since. But I wonder who she''s with and what she''s doing. I hate the thought of it.

Made a list:

I wish I hadn''t:

Been so disconnected and down for the last year. Was feeling pretty stressed and harboured some resentment towards her for a few things (I already mentioned them).

Failed to be more forceful in my attempts to find out more about who she was in the bedroom.

Been resentful of her "other life" and had been more positive about it all (although this I feel was impossible as I really felt she had sacked off family life for this).

These were my three main sins. I take full responsibility for them.

I wish she had:

Shown some inclination to get to know ME as a person. All the things I liked (sitting together in the park - talking; talking at night as we cuddled; walking in nature together) were dismissed, ridiculed, or disliked by her.

Shown the same sort of inclination to get to know our son. He fitted in with her...she did not fit in with him. This pained me.

Been more communicative of her worries, fears, and sexual issues. I feel I never had a chance.

Simply told or showed me that life with me (or our family) was more important to her than anything else. As it was, I felt she wanted me to show HER that I put her career and education before our family...I couldn''t do that...it compromised my values and I could not live comfortably with that.

These were her main issues (from my side).

What happened here is that these unresolved issues ate away at us. It''s sad when I see them on paper before me...they seem so "solvable", like a "to do" list that was never gotten around to. In reality they were complex problems. I want so much to take my list to her and show her. Tell her we can work through this list...tick all of these off. Work on each one.

God...when I look at it on paper I feel so damn stupid. How could we not have seen these issues coming at us? How could we have just let them drift? Why did we just live in a fog and ignore this shit? I blame myself for that. I should have steered this ship on course...I didn''t.

Don''t go blaming yourself about what has happened or what is happening. It doesn''t help, but I totally understand your search for answers.

From what you''ve written, especially about valuing your family above career - well, I think that''s a very solid way of looking at the world, so don''t go changing this or chastising yourself for something that is clearly important to you (and to so many of us who also come to this site).

As for being positive about her other life? You mean her career, or something else?

There''s this broad simplification of stuff that makes a lot of sense for me, and that is that there are some people who are ''givers'' and others who are ''takers'' in terms of their life philosophy. The givers give to others, whereas the others just take. The ''take'' philosophy is bankrupt, since the happiness of others depends on what they can get. The ''giving'' philosophy is (of course) nurturing since you more often than not get out what you put into it. Sometimes there is the ebb and flow of who does the giving and who does the taking. I guess looking at things in this way helps one to see whether things are lop sided. You sound like someone who has given loads.

It''s all very well for her to send you manipulative texts, but they''re not helping and you''re not getting answers. It''s not right that she''s swanning off to London: you''re either in a relationship (which means its okay for her to send these texts) or not. Like I said before perhaps you need to give a clear message and say something like, ''look, you either come clean, tell me what the smeg is going on, or I''m going to serve you with divorce papers, and then you''ll have some thinking to do''.

Take care mate.
JJ

Sam

What you described could have been the end of my marriage.

I married young and had children quickly. I gave up a good career in order to support my husband career. (We had to move each time he got a promotion.)

After a few years due to economic pressure I had to return to the work place. I found the only jobs I could was shop work which I didnt find fulfilling.

With my husband support I went back to uni and it was at this time the cracks began to show (with hindsight they were always there). I felt unsupported by him and he felt neglected by me.

By the second year of uni my marriage failed completely.

Looking back 20yrs later I can see that maybe if we had been able to communicate our frustrations the marriage would have worked. Instead we both became entrenched in our own issues.

The first two year after the separation was hell, the divorce was very bitter and protracted.

Somehow we managed to keep the children out of the situation and went on to joint parent (we just lived in two houses) and we are both very proud of our sons.

Hindsight is amazing but its that, what done is done and you have to move on as best as you can.

Maybe with time you can find your way back together or maybe its too late, but you will survive and will be able to make a life for yourself and your son.

Hi samchik,

I feel you are sifting through your brain trying to find what you did wrong in an attempt to make some sense of things and try to fix them in retrospect.

I did the same

You can''t go back in time and "fix" things.

I think what you are attempting to do is look back over things and try to think what you could have done to STEER HER away from her present thinking and course of action.

Answer IMO is there was nothing you could have done.
If you had fully supported her 100% in her academic ambitions and agreed that she should come first and you and your son second, then she would probably have said to you that it would also make more sense for her to get a flat in London to cut down on all the travelling and allow her to spend more time with her fellow students...and could you help her pay for rent.

Which was the problem at the point when you first joined the forum.

You''ll drive yourself nuts going round and round in your head trying to "fix" it IMO.

LW

Samchick you have said a lot of things that I said when ex dropped the bombshell.

I think it is perfectly normal to try and find answers to what went wrong. I am still doing this now 2 years on!

The one thing I have learnt is you will never know exactly at which point it turned bad. I admitted to all the things I believed had been a part of our demise, and I truly believe that if ever I am lucky enough to meet someone else, these things will be remembered and not repeated. My ex on the other hand has never actually admitted to his part in it, as far as he is concerned it was all my fault.

Well there are two people in a marriage, and both should take responsibility.

My ex took great delight yesterday in informing me he is getting married in June, and that I was not a good mother.

Well I know I am and so does my son.

What I am trying to say is you have to think of yourself and your child in all this and do what you think is right. You will torment yourself for a long time with the why? what if? how come? etc and one day hopefully it will be easier.

I keep looking at the tiny speck of light in the distance and pray it gets bigger.

Stay strong xxx

From my own personal experience, I started my journey on the road of separation believing very genuinely that there was something very wrong with me. My Stbx certainly seemed to be very good at projecting blame in my direction regarding his inability to stay faithful.

So, I spent a lot of time at first beating myself up, with my new mates coulda woulda and shoulda. I felt like I was going crazy. People who have been around some time will remember my blogs, thousands of words and hours trying to make sense of what it was that I did wrong and why what in my head was a list of very minor issues being blamed for marital breakdown could not be fixed.

I kept going to my counselling banging on about these issues and how it could work......if only he would give me the chance...... Why didn''t I see........ And so it went on in the same vein.

My counsellor introduced me to the concept of emotional unavailability. Now I started to understand on a totally different level why my marriage had failed. In my marriage, what I did well it never seemed good enough for him. I''d fix what was "wrong" then something else would be "wrong" and when I would fix that something else would be a little wrong. My Stbx was incapable of making a heart connection with another person. Relationships were not about love for him, more about control. Meeting his unreasonable demands for perfection after some years had left me totally broken.

I realised that i was looking at my marial problems at the wrong level. Analysing the symptoms not the cause of the issues. The root cause was much simpler and went to the heart of the sort of person my Stbx was. He simply could not connect emotionally with anyone. Then I realised that I had ended up with the clear belief that this was my fault and it was my responsibility to fix it by being perfect. It was not down to me, my Stbx had no ability to let me in to make a proper emotional connection.

It''s human nature to look for flaws in ourselves when things don''t go as we expect. I ended up being traumatised twice by my marriage, once by the loss and abandonment and again by the loss of confidence in myself. That''s why the end of these relationships is very painful much more so than a fully realised relationship. We runimate on what we could of done differently to make it work.

I realised some time ago that I could not fix my Stbx issues. That was a matter for him. People can and do recover from emotional unavailability issues but change is a matter of choice and it is a choice only the person in need of change can make.No matter how much I wanted Stbx to behave differently, he chose to continue blaming me for his issues and accepted no responsibility. In this context, I felt I had to move on with my life and understand the biggest point of all. How I ended up in a relationship with someone who was so incapable of making emotional connections. That''s when I started to take responsibility for my choices and how my own backgrounds, beliefs about myself had meant I got less than I deserved in my marriage.

For this my journey has been about working through different levels of understanding. I''m grateful for the knowledge I have gained as i am a much happier person for it. I see the world through a different lens these days.

Good luck to all!

I reckon she sent the you are very very handsome stranger text to you by mistake.
Then phoned you up the next morning to cover it.
That''s what I reckon really happened.
Sam read your list of her behaviour in summation

A Wasn''t interested in you.
B Wasn''t interested in the kid either.
C Was interested in herself.

I can''t believe you''re a psychologist but then you can''t teach what I possess in books.
As for Freud he never got beyond being obsessed with drawing Pxxxcks like teenage boys do.
All the best
HRH xx