Separating and looking for introspection

[James2014]

Hey everyone

 

Some months ago I made a series of posts about my relationship woes. They were regarding criticism from my partner, differences in spending priorities and my partners out of control daughter.

 

We are now separating amicably and both feel a great relief.

 

What I'm wondering is if I have a need for A partners approval for my happiness or if I've just been with someone very wrong for me.

 

My ex feels that my happiness was derived too much from her and I got lost in her. I'm not sure how to examine this because she has 5 kids and I don't feel there was much of a choice but to get lost in the family because the demands of it were so high - particularly with her daughters mental health concerns.

 

As well, outside of her my stress and anxiety levels went waaaaay down (like, around anyone else but her) and I've never really had low self esteem as a single person ever in my life so yes she affected my happiness on a large scale but she was super critical and it brought me down a lot.

 

Any ideas? I'd like to grow from this and recognize places within myself that I can improve but in my perhaps biased mind I was fine until I was constantly under fire. Maybe I'm just not recognizing that deficit in myself.

 

Thoughts?

[abitbroken]

There is a difference in being surrounded by family and becoming part of the family versus becoming lost in someone - not having a social life outside of that person, dramatically changing yourself even when they don't require it/its not necessary around and for that person. Changing your schedule to accommodate the kids' schedules is teamwork, but dropping your own family, rejecting all your favorite hobbies and even doing everything the way she does them automatically and losing your own self is different.

 

I don't know what to say without real examples.

 

It is a shame that the out of control daughter was a big factor in the divorce, though. I figured you would have known she had a daughter who was mentally ill before you married her.

[James2014]

I had my own hobbies and friends for sure, and her daughter went off the rails about 2 years in to our relationship.

 

She criticized everything from how I cooked my own eggs, to having Christian friends when I'm not religious to where I tried to plan a couples getaway, it was quite an onslaught.

 

I guess some examples of ways she felt I got lost in her were

 

Going with her to the drugstore with the intent of having that 15 minutes to talk to her (we both work a lot)

 

Planning a night out for her birthday

 

She was annoyed when I bought her flowers, was doing it monthly early on in the relationship but it frustrated her.

 

Wanting attention I suppose, she's busy and not terribly romantic or touchy. I felt like I was starving for affection

 

Trying to analyze.... Sigh

[James2014]

Actually, after some mulling over, I think I was just trying to hard to fit a square peg in a round hole, as was she. There were definitely some great things about one another that brought about the initial attraction, but too many fundamental differences that we tried to push through.