Originally Posted by Mulan
Quote
When I suddenly got the compulsion to click the "message" button and explain why I was not going to accept that friend request, the only thing that crossed my mind was that I wanted her to not think I was being a jerk for not friending her.

You were concerned with what Facebook Woman would think of you, so that's what you acted on.

If you were concerned with what DWG would think of you, *that's* what you would have acted on.

You can't have it all. You can't connect with every woman you meet, much as you have tried, and expect to have a rewarding marriage with a happy wife.

Either your wife comes first or she doesn't. In this case, once again, she didn't. She was expected to just disappear while you got strokes and attention from some other woman. I guess she was supposed to be happy for you that some woman made you feel good, and you can't understand why she wasn't?

Mommy is happy when girls are nice to her little boy. A wife is devastated when other woman are allowed to "be nice" to her husband (that is, to fill his ENs.)

That's how you've run your "marriage" for years and years - though the truth is, of course, that DWG has been married and you have not. Worrying about what Facebook Woman thinks of you instead of what your wife thinks of you is proof that you are still not married.

You are right about how I ran my marriage. This is not longer the case.

The rest of it, regarding how I feel about her and what or who I value more is a projection carved out of your own painful experiences and is no longer true for me. You have been posting about honesty, and if you are honest, you will admit that don't have any real idea how I feel or what my motives were in this case, only what you are projecting, unless you are talking about how this episode made DWG feel. Remember, those are feelings that she shared in a post. They are what she FELT as a result of how I handled this Facebook episode. Those feelings are my responsibility to address by showing care and loving support, ending my Facebook account, etc. Your harshness is based on your interpretation. I am asking you in a nice way to back off, because your insights are valuable to me, and I don't want to stop reading them.

FWH, age 63. 24 years of narcissistic behavior, infidelity, and emotional abandonment of my BS, age 57, DancesWithGoats (DWG). D-day two years ago, leading to emotional breakdown. Been working MB program and toward spiritual transformation and personal growth since then, with some slow but real progress. DWG still with no trust, but with grief starting to subside a bit.