More and more, and less and less...

[Fogg]

Very interesting, Zues. Thanks for sharing it all. I can see how resentful you might be toward W, and society, after struggling with those questions. Maybe resentful isn't the right word, disappointed fits better. You went through this stage of questioning what it means to stay, what it means to leave, what was the right action. Working through what each really meant for you before finally making the decision that you were all in to making this M work. Only to have W throw it away. You tried to do everything right and in the end it still ended in D.

I'm sorry, I know how much you wanted that connection and M with only her. Just the chance to make it work, no matter how long it took. It just required two people who were willing to do anything. You have said many times you wanted a M with one partner for life and are disappointing society doesn't see it that way. I feel the same. I'm disappointed in how M turns out for the majority also. One M, one partner, I feel that's the way it should be but maybe this isn't how most people see it. It sure isn't how it usually happens.

[JulieH]

Zues,

Those are very uncomfortable feelings to own up to, let alone share. They resonated with me. Sometimes I wonder if perhaps husband and I married, simply because there was no real reason to break it off. We both looked good on paper. Sometimes I wonder if I sabatoged this and in a sense was really the walkaway.

Or Perhaps we all feel like this at times, but have trouble admitting it to ourselves or to anyone. People are pretty awful at the core and In a marriage we are exposed to each other's worst qualities.. so bad feelings are bound to happen, no? MarriAges don't really entail that selfless love, like the kind we have for our kids, so I think these feelings you expressed are inevitable at some point.

[trumpet]

Wow, Zues, those words were written by you?

It shows the power of infatuation/love. Of just the self-doubt in a person, as well as a spark with someone, can bring about those kind of doubts.

Thank you for sharing that. Does it seem like a different person completely wrote those words?

Where I am as a man, a father, a husband, is light years different than where I was before BD. My addiction, getting help, puts me on a different planet to where I was.

[Zues126]

Thanks guys. I waited to reply to give others a chance. For those that haven't read it, I'm discussing my journal excerpt from 2011 when I was struggling to remain committed to my marriage.

Personally I find no shame in how I felt. Because those were feelings and thoughts. How I acted is perfectly in line with what I believe. You stay together, no matter what. That's what I did. I never had an EA/PA. I never left. I thought you stuck it out. So first off, I'm proud of that, not ashamed.

But to Julie's point, I think that EVERY marriage feels like that a lot of the time. Or some of the time. Maybe that's just me projecting my experience onto others...but I doubt it, because everyone on this board has probably felt that way and their WAS certainly did! So I think these feelings are normal in a marriage, and not a reason to get divorced. Because I also believe that if two people stay together through those times, eventually good things will happen, in one form or another. Maybe not the way we'd like it. But that's life.

Fogg, good point, but I'm actually not disappointed after reading that...it helps me remember that we're not so different. I feel more compassionate towards WAS, and it helps me keep my perspective that my life wouldn't be 'all better' if my XW hadn't left. In fact, I can truly say I'm doing better than ever now. Of course, I believe I could've been doing better than ever and still married, so I don't think D brought about my sense of appreciation, and I do think it was unnecessary...but I get why so many people fall into the trap of believing the thoughts I wrote in red. And this is why I think entitlement is the devil.

[JulieH]

Hey zues,

If your wife did not leave you, would you have been motivated to make changes? Was her leaving, what made you more committed to her and your marriage?

[Zues126]

I think there was a certain amount of pain I had to go through to realize I was doing some things that weren't working for me. Had XW not left it may have taken me more time to figure this out. With her gone there was no one else to blame and I had to take accountability. That said, I was hurting quite a bit in the marriage anyway and I'm not sure I could have continued like that indefinitely. There comes a point when you hit bottom, BD or no BD.

In the end I can never say for sure what would have been. I only know we would have been married while we figured it out.

[Ginger1]

I truly enjoyed reading your post about pool and enjoying the whole journey. You always did come across as only enjoying things when you are the best at them, then hammering yourself when you weren't. I actually grew up as an average joe. I was very average growing up and often didn't even try things I might enjoy for fear of not being good enough or even the best. I truly regret regret that and feel like I missed out on some fun experiences. We should always try our best, but beating ourselves up if feel we didn't do the best just isn't worth the damage that it does to your psyche. Just have a good time, enjoy life, as it is quite short.

[SunnyB]

Zues.....its the weekend. Time for Sunny to check in on Zues. How are you? We had a couple days of winter this week, back to normal now. Give me an update, pretty please.

[Zues126]

Hi Sunny. Thanks for checking in! And ginger, thank you for the words and for riding it out with me.

This weekend was good. Wasn't all easy, wasn't all magical, but good. Hmm, what can I say about it?

Well, my kids were a bit lazy. We live in MN and it gets cold and we get cooped up. If I'm not careful they'll watch TV and play video games all day. So I grabbed them and took them for a walk around the lake. It wasn't warm, but for being MN in January it was pretty nice, so we bundled up and hiked around a lake. It was very nice. Then when we got home I busted out a boardgame that was a little advanced, it actually says "14 and up" but that's silly, my kids played it and we had a good time. I read a couple more chapters of Lord of the Rings over the weekend, we actually covered the stay at the Prancing Pony in Bree and read through where Frodo gets stabbed at Weathertop. I'm actually surprised we covered that much, but we had fun. Then we just hung out a little.

Today I was more of a parent. We went on another walk...but I had good talks with S11 and D8. S11 isn't being very accountable about doing his homework. It's like he waits for me to tell him to do it. So I had a very casual conversation and talked a little about expectations, and how I understood it wasn't fair to criticize him for not doing something I haven't asked. I told him I'd like him to own his homework going forward, to plan time to do it over the weekend and take care of it without being asked, and to let me know if he needed help with the assignments in time to help him. This was on the tail end of him getting a bad grade on his report card because he didn't know how to get an important assignment done. Instead of telling him what he should've done, I asked him if he would've done anything differently. He said yes, he would've asked me for help. He hugged me a bit and I told him that he did a good job figuring it out, that I know he is trying his best and that's what school is all about, not just learning what they teach but learning how to deal with these things that come up. And that he was learning those lessons just fine and doing well.

We walked around another lake today, it was just too nice and I wanted to enjoy it while we could. Then we played a little pool in the rec room. It's strange, I'm past letting them play by throwing the balls with their hands, but it's still a challenge when they try to use a cue. They'll do ok for a few shots, then they'll miscue, then get frustrated, then they'll go in this cycle of getting angrier, doing a worse job, getting angrier, doing worse, etc. Finally they'll relax and just go back to hitting the balls the way they know how, make a few shots, and have some fun. It's not easy, and a few tears were shed. D8 talked to me about how she feels when she isn't doing well, and when she feels sad. It led to a nice talk tonight, I got to learn more about who she is, how she's doing. It's pretty tripped out to be talking to such a special person about life.

I guess I forgot to mention talk of OM. What should I call OM if it gets more official? D8 talks about him a bit. Funny, when I pick up the kids it takes 20 seconds yet XW managed to get in that she took them snowmobiling and ice fishing last weekend. I knew that was OM activities, they're spending time as a family now. D8 mentioned it was XW, OM, and X-FIL/Partner...so he's being part of the official family, doing things with her side overall. I tried to figure out how I felt about that. It's kind of gross to me, but I understand that's his daughter and he believes her narrative and doesn't get to control her, so what's he going to do? Meanwhile it still is irritating to me that XW may never question her narrative about how we couldn't be together, when I've proven to myself I'm capable of amazing change and more than I ever expected from myself. It just surprises me I guess that she wouldn't see value in who I am. DB forums have helped. I understand WAS's but I don't understand it at the same time. It's like watching someone with a gambling problem and thinking, 'but don't they understand they aren't going to win?' even after you learn about the psychology of the addiction. I get how she felt and why she did what she did, it still just surprises me that people do that.

Finally for myself I sometimes wonder about other partners, I test the idea in my mind, and I still keep coming back to I'm not in the right universe as ready to seriously consider it. I know who I am and I know what I'm worth and I am not ready to go through this again. Reading DB forum may be a negative for me, all I see anymore are WASs and as a result I have no interest in considering a partnership when I don't trust humanity. But that's ok, I'm less than 2 months into my mandatory '12 months no date zone' anyway, so I say this more to measure my progress and growth (or lack of it) than because I'm worried about it. As GB said there is nothing wrong with taking a few years to guide my children through some hard times and enjoying what I've been given.

In the end nothing tremendously exciting. Got to get a little work done yet tonight, then I have to work hard this week, finally I have another pool tournament coming up this next weekend. Life keeps on marching. Thanks for sharing some of it my DB friends!

[- MB -]

Zues, your journal excerpt was interesting to read. Your struggle is so real in the way you write. It's almost like I can hear your conversation as it goes on in your head. I have those conversations in my head as well, but I never write them down on paper. Maybe my fear of someone reading them and feeling so exposed? Anyway, thank you for sharing! What's so sad in all of that is that you put a lot of thought and reasoning into how you were feeling, and then your XW followed through with what you had decided was the wrong decision. So unfair. There's a difference in thinking it and actually following through and walking away. You can say it gives you more compassion and understanding for the WAS, but I still think that it's extremely selfish to just walk away from your spouse without trying everything possible to save the marriage. If everything had been said and worked on until there was nothing else left to do, there would be no BD because both people would be on the same page since they were working together on it. Instead, they just walk away and force the other person into complete and total despair, loneliness, fear beyond belief, complete mistrust of potential future partners, heartbreak for the children, etc. The spouse that was promised "for better or worse" certainly didn't sign up for that kind of devastation. Just my opinion.