Here's me doing mind-reading

[EyesOnThePrize]

So, my ex-wife just told me she's making a Live Journal post with her new address and updating her emergency contact information to her new boyfriend. I'm not really hurt by that, I think its appropriate under the circumstances. I did tell her that I would still be there for her in an emergency. She said she appreciated that. I also said that I hoped one day she would believe in me again (yeah, in retrospect I think that was a little bit of 'poor me'). She said that she just couldn't turn trust on like that. I understand that, too. However, I think that says that she wants to turn the trust back on, and that I have to prove myself to her. Okay, fair enough. I know I broke trust plenty of times in the past...that's the man I was, not the man I want to be. And yeah, I know that saying "I think she wants me to rebuild the trust" may be reading into things a bit, and honestly, I still believe its true.

[jenny_mcs]

How did you break her trust in the past?

[Addicus]

Yes, I am interested in knowing how the trust was broken?

[Litgirl01]

Me too....please splain???

[pumpkinmoon]

I think from this she still has feelings for you but I think her trust issues are in the way and that is stopping her. I don't want to get your hopes up in anyway though.

[EyesOnThePrize]

I broke her trust in a zillion small ways. I would say I would pick up something at the store and then forget three or four times. I would promise to help her out at a convention and then help her out...in a rude and surly way because I think I was letting my own insecurities and past get in the way of helping her. She asked me dozens of times "Don't treat me like a client, treat me like your wife!" and I kept coming back with solutions, and not just a shoulder on which to cry. She asked me never to make jokes about her in public and I kept doing it. They were never mean-spirited....to me. They affected her deeply. We did photoshoots together and I would be rude because we were in a power struggle. And when I did it in front of friends of hers, she was hurt very deeply. There were lots of lots of these incidents, and they wore her down over the years. I used to drive her nuts with my indecisiveness. "Will you be able to get his for me?" "I should be able to." In my mind, "should" meant "well, unless giant cracks appear in the earth, I'll do it" and in her mind "should" meant "He won't make a decision." One of the posters on my wall says "Am I hesitating to say 'Yes'? They don't want that." It took me a while to get that poster. I think people decisiveness (not to be confused with pigheadedness) is an attractive quality. However, because of poor self-image and self-doubts, I think I always subconsciously wanted an out. "Well, I only said 'should', so its not like I promised to do it."

 

She has severe abandonment issues, which I think hurt her trust level in me. I think she doesn't want to trust me and many times I think she twisted things to make it look like I was being untrustworthy, which I now realize made perfect sense to her. She believed that people always leave, so why would she want to have trust in them. Someone you can trust is someone with whom you stay, and nobody stays with her. Twisted logic, and unfortunately I think its how her mind works,

 

She had a suicide attempt in 2004. She took a bunch of sleeping pills. She came downstairs and told me what she had done. Of course I immediately called 911 and then took her to the emergency room and was with her in the hospital while she recovered. She told me that she had expected me to let her lay on the floor and die. Her trust level in me was that low. And its not just me. She doesn't trust anyone much, especially herself. But right now, the guy who was supposed to always be there for her disappointed her in a lot of ways, and I know it makes perfect sense to her to not trust me.

 

I think that if the people on this board had experienced me six months ago, they would have seen a very different person. As I believe I've mentioned, the divorce was a huge wake-up call for some things that aren't working in my life. I'm working very hard to improve myself, and its difficult, especially where she's concerned, because my trust in her is also very low right now.

 

Shoefairy - My hopes are non-existent for an immediate reconciliation. In fact, I don't want one because of our issues. However, I think that after she sees that this new guy is as bad or worse than me (as I believe is likely to happen) and she sees that I am working hard to overcome my issues, I think she will look at me differently. However, there is a long, long road ahead of us. I think we have love as a foundation, though, and that gives us a head-start. I think it will take more than that, and I think its better than having nothing.