Dealing with a Major Personal Crisis/Comments
The personal account below is not posted in Main or Discussion directly but here because it contains personal details the author does not want to be directly trackable to himself via a trivial Google search. The author is aware that linking and wiki functions allow to make this connection but assumes that this will more likely happen only by persons who know him and his story anyway. Please respect this wish and don't mention the authors name in a link to this page. You are free to cite parts of this as per this wiki's license. You may of course make typographical corrections or add/correct links and references.
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Comments
Did she wrong?
- I hope in objectifying the situation you haven't lost sight of how she is plainly wrong here.
- The commitment involved in marriage relationships involves a great deal of sacrifice. Both parties commit to forsake others in order to build and grow the bond they have chosen.
- She used your willingness to honor that commitment and sacrifice as a stepping stone.
If you can say this with confidence then I have not made that part of my account clear enough.
> Both parties commit to forsake others in order to build and grow the bond they have chosen.
Indeed the one thing I had the most trouble to forgive her (get over emotionally) was that she had not kept her wedding vow.
But reflecting a lot on it I saw that she had had doubts and felt insecure about me from the beginning. Even shortly before the wedding she had had doubts (which I read as nervosity). But with time I forgot about her doubts. We were happy and her depressions went away. Sure. She vowed. But could I say that she really committed to that? Shouldn't I have made this doubt a topic every now and again until it was resolved and committed? Or rather should I have forced her to fully and explicitly commit to it before the wedding? And left her when she had said "no I can't, I'm not ready"?
No. We were young and we had to give each other a lot. I can say this with confidence now. I didn't lost the true good aspects of our relationship. It was the best choice to make at that time. Many alternatives worlds wouldn't have included so many satisfying purposeful years nor our four great sons. I took the risk at that time. Not fully consciously at the wedding maybe but before that.
What were her alternatives? Throwing away her chance at happiness after she had done her duties so many years? Despite my love for her living with me wasn't always easy. Or dump him and stay with me always regretting and escalating our differences (the same effect I could have had by forcing her to choose between me and him)?
Our differences that were secondary to her fading problems became the dominant part of have utility function. And with that a part of me that had previously been able to blame her moods on prior problems noticed more and more her dissatisfaction with me because I didn't have a compartment for her as an ideal.
Given that she didn't choose to alter her terminal goals to actively make me her ideal mate - which is a hard demand to make (I surely wouldn't expect anybody to) I have to assume that the chances that out marriage would have deteriorated earlier or later were high and the toll on the children would then even be higer on the children (studies toward that must be somewhere in the references).
So considering this her honesty with me in this and the consequence with which she went that path all the time caring for the children and treating me with respect I have to thank her for that too. I think she knew what she lost. I'm crying. There is a part in me that loves that part of her still. I will have a hard time finding someone with that strength, honesty and consequence.