I came across an article this weekend that more accurately describes STBXW. I think that emotionally immature is a better way to describe her actions. There are some similarities between narcissim and emotional immaturity. But the main difference is that I truly don’t believe that she intentionally is playing games for domination or power.

I think that she really lacks empathy and the ability to see the bigger picture. She lacks self reflection and even though her intent may not be malicious, she cannot understand how her actions affect others. She doesn’t truly understand higher principles like honor, respect, and family values. Some people are just like that and unfortunately, I didn’t vet her enough to figure this out.

That said, I judge her, but it’s unfair in a way. It’s like judging a blind person for being unable to see. Their lack of vision doesn’t make them a terrible person. Just not good for certain jobs. I have to take responsibility and understand that if i should ever fall in love, I need to make sure that we are on the same page. Looking back, I never thought she was a deep person, but since we’ve been estranged, I have come across certain women (not many, but a few) who I think would have been better suited for marriage to me.

I think that we were in love with each other at one time. But I don’t think that we ever had that deep soul connection that I would yearn for in a lifelong partner. Looking back, there were times I felt dissatisfied at the things we’d disagree on and wondered how she thought so differently about things. Examples include her wanting breast implants, her not understanding the importance of putting the marriage over her friendships, she feeling the importance of putting kiddo in a private school, despite us living in one of the top public school disctricts, her lack of transparency with her income, her feeling a certain way about “loaning” a small amount of money to family members in need, her desiring an expensive house beyond what we could afford at the time…..and so forth. To me, she seemed more concerned with living a lifestyle than a life. More concerned about the house, than the home so to speak.

Now I cannot judge her for her preferences in any of those things. I don’t have a problem with her wanting those things, but I probably wouldn’t have ‘wifed’ her though….as our values and beliefs are so diametrically opposed. But because I was dedicated and very much ‘in love’ with her, I was willing to overlook those things. I did not anticipate that those preferences indicated something deeper that would ultimately break us apart…..and because our connection wasn’t really that deep, communication wasn’t that strong, and values unaligned, we were unable to repair any breaks or fissures in the relationship. The only glue holding us together at this point is our love for Kiddo. If not for him, I’m sure we both would have moved on without looking back.

This is the danger of being ‘in love’….it can blind you to the reality that you’re really not all that compatible with a person. Once that feeling wears off AND if your values don’t align, it’s just a matter of time before misery enters in and both parties feel dissatisfied. In our case, she fell out of love first, checked out, and attempted to move on without me. It hurt and felt disrespectful because I was her husband and to make matters worse, because we had a family, I couldn’t just walk away. Her affair was likely an exit affair…..and it left me alone, angered, bewildered, and bitter due to the fact that it seemed that as my world was falling apart, her new “in love” feeling guaranteed that she didn’t care about how it made me feel. I felt reject, dejected, emasculated, abandoned, and discarded. It was as if she didn’t care about me, how I was there for her, our family,history, or friendship, my self dignity or the fact that I had never done her wrong. I just couldn’t understand how she didn’t value our nuclear family and could simply walk away into another man’s arms….as if it all meant nothing.

I don’t know if I am wrong for this, but during the worst times of my suffering, I felt that I was more upset about losing our family more than I was about losing HER per say. I think that I loved our family more than I loved her…though I did love her and would do anything for her. But the idea of losing her was something I think I could have handled much easier. But the idea of how to tell our young son that the life we had was no longer going be just crushed me. Love comes and it goes, but family….. man that was hard….and though we haven’t outright told him yet, I think he knows that the writing is on the wall. He has to know, now that he’s a bit older that something just isn’t right.

In her waywardness, she has now become a stranger to me. I barely know her anymore, but from what I do know, I don’t think she’s the type of woman I’d wife again. I can’t see how I could fall “in love” with her all over again. Our incompatibilites are just too apparent, there is too much water under the bridge, and though I do find her somewhat still physically attractive…..that attraction is superficial. I don’t find her appealing from a mental, spiritual, or emotional level. I think she can sense it now, though she probably doesn’t care…..I used to think that once I emotionally disconnected, she’d come back…..but it’s been so long and now I don’t think so. I can’t unsee what I’ve seen and there is no way back for us. The connection is gone.

The part now is working through my anger and trying to get over the fact that she hurt and disrespected me destroyed our family so callously without remorse or repentance. I have to overcome this desire to want to see karma or revenge against her. The desire to prove that she was wrong for this and should take accountability. Yet in the end, it seems that this desire hurts me more in the end as she continues to live her life as if she has done nothing wrong….feeling nothing…..and believing she still deserves an ending befitting of a ‘good’ person. This tells me that she just isn’t right for me. Perhaps this was a lesson. Maybe it was my karma that I’m burning off. Maybe I deserved this for something I did in a past life or something as I truly don’t understand what I could have done to deserve so much pain.

But the reality is that people go thru worse shit all the time. Parents lose kids. Close people die. People catch terminal disease or suffer with life long health conditions. Abject poverty is out there. Kids working for pennies in sweatshops. Millions of Jews experienced the holocaust. Many of my ancestors experienced slavery and jim crow and all the bullshit that went along with that. The great depression happened. The black plague happened. Genghis khan. Pol Pot. Jeffery Dahmer’s victims and their families. Wars happen and people lose their homes and ways of life. We dropped a nuke on hiroshima and nagasaki….911… Southside of Chicago….. Hong Kong…..North Korea…..Ukraine…..There are people dying of starvation……people get abducted, abused, raped, sold into slavery…….millions of people throughout history have lived dreadful lives and died in fear and pain…..

In short, all sorts of evils befall man… many who don’t seem to deserve it. And many would lose a limb to swap and go through what I’m going through instead. Tbh, I’d rather go through this than any of those things. Most other aspects of my life are pretty good and for that I am grateful and truly blessed. I’ve been a pussy about this. I’m not special. As my grandfather used to say, “thank God it is as good as it is.”