Need help. Threading water, must learn to swim.

[G8r]

I hear you broke. I'm sure your sitch is not only hard on you but your son as well. I see how it's affecting my D3. One of the things that aggravates me the most is how my WW thinks what she is doing is good for D3. While I agree that it isn't good for D3 to see and hear us argue, I sincerely doubt we would be arguing if she wasn't having an A. Prior to her A, we very rarely argued because we were so compatible. Furthermore, are current arguments are all related to her A. She also says it's important for our D3 to see her happy and in a healthy relationship. Wtf. Showing our D3 that running away from problems is ok and having an A is ok are good things? She won't answer and switches back to the importance of happiness. Grrrrrr. ...

And to think, one of the things that I use to love about her was how rational she always seem to be.

[Thornton]

Addicts act like addicts, G8r.

And right now she is addicted to OM.

You can throw rational right out the window.

[G8r]

You're right Thorton. Telling myself that she is an addict has been something that I've done to help myself forgive and release some of my anger and resentment. Not all of it. Lol. But some of it.

There's some pretty good neuroscience research to support that idea.

[broke]

I completely agreed with you:

- rarely argued until bomb drop
- never good to show kids you bail when things get tough
- I thought my H was logical and rational too!

It's almost scary how similar a lot of our stories are!

I think one of the hardest things is the rewriting of history to justify the affair. Of course things were so bad we were going to get a divorce anyway. It really wasn't the affair. It was because we had all these problems. Which were never discussed until after the affair started. So frustrating that we as LBS can see the pattern but they can't! The addiction to OP is too strong.

Hope you are feeling better tonight.

[Sparkls]

It really is amazing how they all say the same thing. And we have to sit in limbo waiting for a fog to clear while trying to work on our sleves, when really we aren't the ones with the big problems that need to be addressed.

I'm sure others feel this way too but I'm super annoyed that I'm not even given the chance to improve myself when it comes to relationship troubles. I can't work on validation and non-judgemental when I'm by myself really. I can recognize the problem and try, but without practice, change isn't really possible

[TimR]

Sparks you can work on validation without him. You can do it in everyday life! Heck you can do it in this forum. Thornton is great at it, read his posts to others!

[Sparkls]

I can (and am as much as I'm able since I'm still new and learning everyone's sitch and ropes), but in the heat of a disagreement, when one of us is trying to tell the other that they're wrong, is when I would fall apart. I would take it personally that he went out of his way to prove me wrong and yet I ended up doing the same thing , or worse just telling him his idea was stupid (I never called him stupid but he always took it that way and since I am educationally "smarter" it was always a sore point. I always apologized when I did that but that wasn't enough apparently).
Things like that, I can recognize as things I don't want to do and I can prepare for how I'd handle the situation but until you're there, it's all just talk.
Just annoyed I was never given the chance to do better, as I'm sure everyone here is. "Grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change...etc"

[Thornton]

So I see some things that you can turn into goals to work on.

Tell us more about your fights with H. Would you both scream and yell at each other? Name calling? Did you ever resolve conflict or would you both just retreat to your respective corners?

[Sparkls]

Until recently we actually fought really well if that's a thing. We had a rule that we never went to bed until everyone had their chance to speak. We very seldom went to bed angry. We never slept in seperate beds. We discussed more than fought. Never screamed, never said things just to hurt each other. We started to fight differently recently (probably should have been a clue). He would test me on things. For instance one of the biggest fights we had was over a stupid Xbox controller. He wanted this $150 controller. I thought spending that kind of money was ridiculous and we're kind of tight on it. So he agreed and we agree to discuss it again later once the controller had been out for a while. Seemed like a good compromise (I wanted some reviews to show it was worth the money). The without telling me, he asked everyone to give him money for Xmas for it. I was hurt that after this great compromise, he went behind my back to get what he wanted. We fought about it, j said stupid things like its our Xmas money, not his. And that the controller was a stupid waste of money. He has now taken this fight to be everything wrong with our relationship. He shut down, wouldn't talk about it anymore. Come Jan, the reviews were in, I got my loan money and I felt bad cause I knew I had been kind of ridiculous so I bought him the controller as a surprise present. He took it badly, saying I was just trying to placate him or something.

Basically,
He stopped talking to me when he had a problem with me and started talking to OW who of course encouraged him to leave me.

[Sparkls]

Clarification: when I mentioned him thinking I called him stupid, that is really a recent problem. He never took it personally in the last or if he did, he told me and I apologized and explained that that was not my intent and I don't believe he is stupid at all.

I think our fighting changed when I started to really fall into my depression. I would get snippier and would just give up and walk away more, repress more. I guess he started doing the same. Knowing as much as I do about depression from my education, this is actually a pretty classic sign. And I'm getting treatment and can already feel some of the depressive fog lifting even despite everything that's going on. I get out of bed each day and do things because I want to, not because I have to.