I had an epiphany today. Over the past few weeks I've become aware of the fact that I've been harboring a lot of resentment toward my wife for things that happened over the 6 years of our relationship. Today I realized that I don't resent her--I resent my old BP-self for allowing myself to put up with all of it. I can't even be mad at her... AWALT. I was just a total beta push over and let myself put up with all her BS over the years.

I entered this relationship 6 years ago with the scarcity mentality. I felt that she was special, that she would be the one, and I put up with a lot of shit that in hindsight I shouldn't have. I did it because she was my oneitis and I was terrified of losing her. Of being single again... of being thrust back into the SMP. Reading the sidebar and the posts on the various RP subs have been eye opening and have stirred up a lot of stuff I compartmentalized away over the years. She did things that hurt, that sucked, and that were upsetting to me. Her actions showed that she had wavering interest in me... and that she quite possibly cheated on me. But I put up with it. Because... scarcity mentality, oneitis, you name it. Fuck. Below are some of the 'highlights' of the BS that I put up with.

  • Her suddenly being too busy to spend time together. I believed her hamstering about her new classes in grad school being too time consuming. I pushed to spend more time together and kept pursuing her, probably coming across as needy. Today I would withdraw attention and start cultivating other options.
  • Her suddenly acting sketchy when her CC-girlfriend was in town, then telling me she needed space... and then she broke up with me. Well, sort of. She needed time alone to "figure things out", so we were on a break. I, terrified at the prospect of losing her, complied. I even took her back a week later when she wanted to get back together. Today, I would have nexted her and moved on.
  • Fuck me, this one is the hardest. She left for a week-long training for her new job post graduation. When she came back I found a hotel room key with a guy's name printed on it. I confronted her about it in a non-accusatory way, and she insisted that it was just the key that she was issued--It must've been the person who had the room before her or some nonsense, and assured me that nothing happened. She seemed surprised that my head even went there. I believed her and didn't press further for fear of being needy or insecure. At that point I began to check her phone and FB messages from time to time to see if there was anything going on... I never found any evidence.

All of the above happened ~5 years ago, and over the span of about a year. I compartmentalized it all away... and now I'm at a loss.

Through all of these years, I held out and today we're married. And it kills me. It kills me that I let myself get walked over like that over the years. I don't resent her, I resent myself for it. We shouldn't be together--I should've nexted her way back then. Her actions at the very least demonstrated that she wasn't that into me. And I'll never know if something went down in that hotel but will forever suspect it.

Today... thanks to TRP, we're having sex regularly and I've self-improved to the point where I can pull other girls at/above the wife's attractiveness level. I feel confident that I can lead us in a RP marriage. But I don't know if I can ever fully let go of what happened in the past.

I'm trying to figure out how to move forward from here. I really want to press her about the hotel incident... I want closure.

Edits: We've been married 7 months. No kids, no mortgage. We came into the marriage with roughly equal finances.