as of sunday evening, i was pretty done with EVERYTHING.....  

for the last few weeks.... i was done.... i shut down...i couldn't even look at her when i spoke to her.  i i didn't care what she did, or had to say.... i wasn't prepared to listen to her if she was hurting.   i was ready to file the papers i had her sign a week after dday, no matter what the fallout would be

i left on Sat night for a gig, and she was on the floor crying....i just said "i have to go"....on the way to the gig, I started thinking "holy crap...what happens if she hurts herself or try to kill herself ....what am i going to find when i come home.... her in the bathtub with her wrists cut???"

at 130 am , i get a text from her that says she is still awake, and has been on the forums.... one of the forums that she has posted to infrequently over the last 20 months, and that she gets very defensive , when people call her out on.

when i got home, she told me that at one point, she actually did think about cutting herself...said she didn't deserve life, didn't deserve the kids....  i was honestly wondering if i was going to need to call 911

we ended up taking to 330 in the morning and slept in the same bed for the first time in a week or so. we fell asleep in one another arms. 

sun, when i woke up, i read the full forum thread.

wow!....lots of 2x4s ....and for the most part , she took it.... and even when she'd say "oh , i finally get it"...and someone would say "NO...YOU STILL DONT!" ..... and this went on for pages and pages.

i was shocked that she went back to the forums, and i was doubly shocked that she essentially posted something to the effect of "let me have it...go ahead"  

and the posts to her were amazing....articulate....stuff that i wish i would have been able to put into words, but that i never could because I'm still too emotional at this time, but the gist was empathy and selfishness

she said something MON morning to me that , has made me  shift direction a bit though....she said (I’m paraphrasing) but she said something to the affect of “i did what i did because i am selfish and self centered and i have been selfish and self centered most of my life”   .....  and i thought "yes.  yes , you are. yes , you have been.... yes, i realized that early on in our marriage" 

and off all the reasons why (check some of my recent posts with her endless lists of why), of all the reasons why..... this one....i finally accept .... "the reason why i had 8 affairs is because i am a selfish and self centered person, and i have been for most of my life"

YES.  that is a TRUE reason and why.

so what are you going to do about it?

during the day yesterday, she said she consciously changed her focus from HERself to others, like me and the kids....  and it really made a whopper of a difference.  we took the kids to an amusement park for labor day.

 i didn’t know thats what she was doing until she told me after we got back, but it did made a difference. 

this morning i told her that 

“i think the WORK you were doing was all the digging, and itemizing all these things in the past, and yet there was no change.... so for me, i saw no change, and just you looking at all the wrong reasons why you made the choices that you did, but NOW, you say “you made those choices because you are and have been a selfish self centered person, incapable of empathy.....

and MON at the park, there was something different going on...and it made all the change in the word ...for her, for me, for the kids..... she said that thru the whole day, she would focus on others, instead of herself.... focus on the kids.... even if the kids were wound up, or loud, or upset or just being kids...

its like she actually took action to MAKE a CHANGE on monday

and implementing the CHANGE....that is what i think DOING THE WORK really means....it doesn't mean digging into the past and looking for all the external reasons....that isn’t doing THE WORK.... the WORK is accepting that YOU MADE the choices you did, and you did it because you are and have been selfish and self centered and have lack empathy the majority of your life...and getting to that point of accepting that, is the beginning of the work, but the WORK is actually putting the CHANGE into action......

over coffee this morning, she  started talking about accepting her selfishness...but then she started to do the “why am i selfish...what about my past contributed ...and then started going back to childhood, and bullies, and parents....etc...  I stopped her and said

 “the diagnosing DOESNT help you, and it HASNT helped you...because none of that resulted in any action or change from you, but what did help...was YOU being the change....what helped was you being conscious of your choices, and you been conscious of thinking of others, and you making the choices that support that change... 

that was the first time i saw a change in her behavior..... so i told her,

 “i can’t prevent you from diagnosing yourself....but i am asking you to stop, and i am asking you to just BE THE CHANGE....  quit looking in the past again..... BEING the change is being in the PRESENT

i don’t feel as angry as i did last week.....     her most recent epiphany came out of the blue..... certainly nothing i expected...... as last week, even SUN eve, i was done....  

 i don’t want to get “sucked back in” under some false sense of hope,  but today, i don’t feel as certain about being done , as i did for the last 2 weeks.......   i don’t know if thats wishful thinking, or hope, or fear, or denial...... but i can tell you, it feels a lot better then feeling the way I’ve felt for the last 2 weeks......

... i feel far less unguarded today....then the last few weeks... and I’m concerned that , that is in fact me, getting sucked back in, since less then 36 hours ago , i was ready to end it. we talked about divorce, separation, living arrangements... really talked about ending it....and in less then a day and half..... i don't find myself back in that mindset

 right now...it feels good to breath with out this dark weight hanging over my head...it feels nice to not be consumed w anger like i was last week....it feels good to say “yesterday was a good day”....and i'd like  to stay in this mindset for a little while, cause i can’t live like i did last week... ...i just need a little break from that for a bit

before we left for the amusement park i told her 

“do not mistake me not talking about this stuff at the park, for me being ok...

do not mistake a laugh or a smile from me at the park w the kids today as a sign that I’m ok .... 

if for some reason i chose to hold your hand when we are walking thru the park w the kids, do not mistake that for any sign that i am ok with anything.....   

i also told her that, although remaining in my anger and not looking at her when we talked last week, or just not caring about what she was feeling last week , is my MO and form of defense...it also makes me feel worse...nausous , irritable, stressed....nothing good comes from that, yet i do it often.... throw up the walls.    

 i said to her that I’m almost afraid of being civil to her after the last few weeks, because i don’t want her to build her expectation back up only to have them all crumble again.  

 funny isn’t it...as i end up not wanting to hurt her....after all of this....