Man is it hard to do #1 when being hit with #2 often. Just continue to forgive and move on.
My first marriage (20 years) involved number 1. And I did it right. However, that just ticked her off more. The kids tell me that she constantly fights with her live-in boyfriend.
But the thing is, my parents never fought in front of us, while hers always did. I became Mr. Spock when we “fought”. She saw it as condescending.
Number 2 is good advice.
Number three sorta tied into number one for me. At the end of the marriage I was being accused of having an “anger management” problem. In light of what I said above, yeah, it was comical. But I wanted to do my part so I read the books, attended the classes, etc. But the REAL problem was that I finally, after 19 years, STOPPED being a dormat. I was polite, but refused to simply let her step on me without at least politely pointing out what was going on.
Anyway, completely out of the blue I received divorce papers. One of the people I worked with commented one day that if I had continued to be the doormat I’d have probably still been married.
But to my point: After two months of trying to reconcile through our church, God answered my prayer. I asked that if one of us is not willing to reconcile, can he free the other one. Two weeks later, it hit me that I suddenly had zero feeling for her. A week later I went to my 25 year high school reunion and met my current wife of 18 years.
This one is COMPLETELY different. We are still like a couple of kids discovering each other. We are still madly in love with each other. Both of us feel blessed that the other one let us into their life. All transgressions are “little things of no real consequence”. It’s kind of amazing.
And, interestingly, my wife was raised by parents who madly loved each other the whole time she was living at home. Meanwhile, my ex’s mom constantly belittled her father, and he let her get away with it because he had had an affair with the neighbor lady and that guilt completely neutered him. So my ex had certain expectations.
But my wife is the result of two people that deeply loved each other and I’m the result of the same. It matters.
Yes sir. I eventually became so depressed that I crawled into a bottle, any bottle. I also gained about 50+ lbs. I became #3 because of #1 and #2.
I’ve moved out, now, and after being diagnosed with depression, I am on anti-depressants (which is supposed to include weight gain, but I’ve lost 20-25, because I’m not so stressed with her actions/reactions. I still flinch when I get her text message alert, though.) I don’t drink anymore, either (and a LOT less).
When it got to the point that I was being criticized for doing actions she herself had done, and then we couldn’t agree on what exactly constituted “sliced sausage” (I meant, sliced in 3/8’s inch slices, she meant in the middle), I realized there was little to no hope.