I Think I Learned Too Late:

Ok, work is kicking off again so i have no more time to be sad.

Are you noticing how she constantly makes excuses for attacking your self esteem? Your feelings are not important, it’s her needs that have to take president and this makes you feel unstable and when that happens she gets the control.

She states that this soul connect is about her healing and your supposed to be hurt. This is the very root of how a narcissist sees things. Their power and gain comes from hurting others. That’s insane! But that’s who they are and they don’t want you to see clearly. Have you ever seen the classic movie gaslight?

Wow, she calls me a Narcissist and Machiavellian

I'm trusting God. Just being quiet.

Busy afternoon

Still working in the office....

So Rose was right when she suspected that your wife would try to present you as the initiator of the divorce and the guilty party.

Well, fortunately in California, its a no fault divorce state, but i was the one who filed

Just because she says you are selfish etc doesn’t mean you are. People like to misuse labels in very unhealthy ways so they can blame people in an effort to gain control and play the victim.

Everyday, i work on my own self-improvement. I read, watch videos, and pray/meditate. I'm constantly becoming a better version of myself.

I think you got in a habit of automatically accepting whatever your wife says as TRUTH. I think, maybe, you thought that the best way to hold on to this woman was to accept as valid any criticism she flung at you and then bust a gut trying to do, or not do, whatever would lead to her being satisfied.

The problem is that she remains unsatisfied. I don't think your wife knows herself why she is so dissatisfied. There's probably nothing to be gained by arguing with her. You'll never win. She doesn't even have a solid position that you can argue against because she stands on shifting sands. She contradicts herself left and right. Instead, maybe you could try a new way of being a little more assertive. Try not accepting her premise, without doing much more than that. Like, if she says, "You broke my spirit." try saying, "I'm not sure I accept that I broke your spirit." Then just stop right there. Don't follow up with a bunch of reasons and arguments. Just let that simple statement hang in the air. Don't give her anything to push back against.

This forces you both to slow down and think. She might then recite a litany of past behaviors of yours that she wants to criticize. Don't defend those behaviors. Instead say, "I don't think I accept that my doing that broke your spirit." Just stick to that, and don't say much else.

You started this thread telling us how you went and destroyed your wife's spirit. If that's true, then you probably are a terrible person who probably doesn't deserve to be loved. But I highly doubt the original premise. First of all, I don't think this is a woman with "a broken spirit." She's not the one going around with low self-esteem. She's may be dissatisfied with her life. Well - she can join the club. Life is pretty dissatisfying, a lot of the time, for a lot of us. I joined this web site because I struggle with recurring depression. Nobody "broke my spirit." This ain't no rose garden we're living in. Not for any of us. Even if there were cracks in her spirit, it doesn't automatically follow that this or that behavior of yours is what put them there. I do not accept that you playing in a band (or whatever else you want to insert here) "broke her spirit." You need to stop automatically accepting whatever assertion she happens to pull out of her behind. As a student of Law, you are trained in logic. She's prone to very illogical thinking. You do her no favor, when you endorse whatever she says, just because you think that's a good way to keep the peace. That's you being all squishy and weak. Women feel insecure around weak men.

Her mind goes off in all kinds of ridiculous tangents. She needs you to hold up the stop sign and say, "Nope. I'm not going there with you. Believe that if you will, but I'm not endorsing that." Then, say nothing. That would actually be therapeutic for her.

Those points really make sense to me.

Well, i suppose this makes for an interesting story, but it really sucks being the main character.

It makes for a very unhappy story that I wouldn't wish for anyone to be going through. I don't think any contributors to this thread get any gratification from hearing about someone's life being pulled apart and hearing about all the pain that goes with being in the middle of this situation. None of us have been able to offer you a step-by-step guide for how to resolve things so that you arrive at a happy conclusion. I think the breaking up of a marriage is one of the hardest things in life to experience, especially for the person who wasn't looking to have the marriage end. To spend years building a life with someone, only to be told that you're now unwanted is a horrible thing. In some ways I think it's worse than having a spouse die. I don't think there's too many things worse that being rejected by someone you've loved, whom you thought loved you.

Somehow people do manage to survive emotionally in the face of this kind of heartbreak. That's what everyone here hopes for you. It has seemed to each of us that you can be very hard on yourself . . . unfairly so. I admire that you don't want to get all bitter toward your wife and that you still see her as having her virtues. I don't doubt that she has virtues. But clear-thinking doesn't seem to be one of them, not about her relationship with you, anyway. We hear you being demonized to an extent that doesn't seem based in reality. It's important that you not buy into all of that. Building a new life is hard enough without being demoralized by an excessive load of guilt.

I don't know if your wife really even wants this divorce. She sounds pretty confused. I don't know what your next step should be. You do need to stick up for your own interests. She sounds pretty capable of looking out for her interests. There seems to be an element of head games and emotional abuse in the way your wife communicates with you. Personally, I don't find that interesting. I find it disturbing and even somewhat appalling. Right now, it must be hard for you to feel hopeful. Somehow, you will make choices and find a way forward. Hearing how you manage that would be interesting. Stories about someone finding a path through a crisis often are.

How many years were you married to your first wife? And this wife was also married before too. I wonder if either of you had time to actually heal from your first marriages. Maybe you expected this relationship to make up for damage and hurts from your previous marriages. That rarely happens because no one can fix another person like that.

Long story.

Until now, i had no clue about how to heal anything.

Played a show tonight in So Cal. I was, as always really into it,. For 3 hours, i feel no pain, and when the show was over, it hit me that my love of performaning was part of the reason i lost someone very special to me.

Maybe it was, and maybe it wasn't.

A secure person would respect your passion. It’s not like you drank and drugged and cheated.

I choose to lead a very clean life because of my profession. I never tried Marijuana until it was legal and all it did was make me paranoid.

Well, it was one of the "deal breakers" she mentioned.

The hardest part for me is us not talking about our respective days anymore. Im a cimmunicator. Being alone is really depressing...

That's what she's claiming now. Don't depend on her for telling you her real reasons for anything. She stuck around for quite a while after you were performing. Like you said, it paid for expensive home renovations. Now, suddenly, she cannot abide you playing in the band. Sounds fishy to me. She never even brought this up years ago? Back then something could have been negotiated . . .like, if she wanted to agree on how many hours a week you could spend out with the band.

I don't doubt that she now resents you doing anything that you find fulfilling. For those 3 hours in So. Calif., you weren't obsessing over her. That's what she can't abide. I think this lady is quite disturbed. That may become clearer with time. She's handled this whole business of breaking up in whatever way she can make it most painful for you. Don't be surprised if she gets kinda lovey-dovey again. That will be so she can enjoy the thrill of pulling out the rug from under you again.

Admittedly, I don't know this woman . . . but the narrative you relate has an odd, perverse consistency to it.

There's an odd consistency in your behavior too. You keep wanting to see her as the arbiter of what is true. Some things you have to figure out for yourself.

About a week ago, she wrote me this long letter saying she felt like i "faked" being the perfect husband to "trap" her with feelings of love, then gradually reverted to being a musician, didn't "love" gardening, etc., she asserts the entire marriage was based on falsehood. So, next week, her and her girlfriend (who is also divorcing) are going to burn their respective wedding photos to welcome the new moon.

Im like, whatever makes you happy.

Looking back, I'm seeing where she required that i give up my masculinity early on in the relationship, but then became disgusted with me because i was "weak."

Early on, it kind of became a requirement to agree with her to avoid conflict. It became a kind of snowball effect and it was very much a one-way street on many topics, but my past relationships were that way too, so ive become conditioned to that and gotta break the cycle through balance, self esteem and being politely assertive.