I wouldn’t have blamed my wife if she left. I just could never figure out why she stayed if she didn’t want to try and improve things. She never would give me an answer. I would say, “You don’t want to leave and you don’t want me to leave, but you don’t want to love me either. What’s the point?”. If I asked if it was just because she wanted me to continue to support her, she would say that was offensive.
It was pretty frustrating.
I suggested every marriage improvement thing I could think of, Counseling, therapy, reading a book, watching some Instagram reels, dvds, YouTube, podcasts. She wouldn’t budge on any of it.
I finally settled into just improving myself and letting her do her thing.
I feel really good that I’m doing everything I know how and holding nothing back. I finally have an answer to when I ask myself “what more can I do?”
I finally see that she has a wounded little girl that she won’t acknowledge inside of her and there are some things that aren’t about me. Even if I could repair all the damage I have done and be trustworthy and be perfect. Her unhealed childhood wounds will still wreak havoc until she addresses them.
But because I have done so many things, she would only be “how dare you blame me for this after what you have done.” She has a point. And she has her own stuff to address.
So all I’m left to do is be patient and kind and learn from it.
Maybe this is my self-improvement opportunity. Moses spent 40 years as a shepherd to learn the patience he needed to be useful. Maybe this will make me more useful and a man I can be proud of.