Sadly, or unfortunately, or interestingly, my wife thought I was a cocky a-hole when she first met me.
I was full of confidence, knew what I wanted in life, and was happy to broadcast to the world what I thought of myself. We became friends somehow, and she learned how caring, sensitive, and loving I was on the inside. I think that is why she loved me.
Funny thing happened. I tried to be a good husband. I did more than my fair share of the chores. When she was unhappy I did my best to cheer her up. When she wanted to do things, I was happy to oblige. I did these things, because I loved her, and to be honest, I was such a positive and together guy, that I didn't need her help, or perhaps love even.
But as time went by, I noticed that she was less and less interested in pulling her weight around the house. If I brought this up, things would never go quite right. For instance, one of her assigned duties was to do the laundry. Well, I ran out of clean clothes more often than not because she had not gotten around to it. If I asked her to do the laundry, she would get upset that I asked her. If I did it myself, she would get upset that I did it myself. I asked her how I could get her to do laundry in a timely manner (you know, I need clean underwear), and she couldn't come up with anything.
After awhile I stopped trying to get her to do things like that. Instead of asking her to put things back in the fridge after she used them, I just started putting them away for her. Instead of telling her that something she did upset me, I kept it inside (I know, bad idea). And eventually, it started to eat away at my positive energy. It ate away at my self esteem. I felt I couldn't do anything to make her happy, and it hurt that she didn't try to do anything for me. I really didn't need her for anything but her love and her companionship. I had never been depressed or anxious. I had a decent job. I struggled with my weight a little, but so did she and she never indicated it was a problem at all. Sex became less frequent, but she never indicated why and she certainly didn't help me do anything to spice things up. It's like something happened at some point and she just stopped trying to be a wife (or even a responsible adult). Finally, we grew apart enough that she cheated, left me, yadda, yadda, yadda.
I am so frustrated because it was basically her behavior that drove me to lose my confidence. I was trying to help her find happiness so I gave up some of my desires. I was not a needy, spineless wimp like everyone likes to classify nice guys as. I adapted to her because I vowed to love her forever. She would not meet me half way so I went to her, not knowing that I was becoming the instrument of my own demise.
For her to say that I should be more confident and go for what I want more hurts because, I wanted her. I wanted her to be happy, so that is what I went for. She crushed my confidence over the years by making me feel unimportant. I already had her. She vowed forever to me. Was I supposed to act like some sort of alpha male all the timed? Should I have flirted with other girls to make her jealous? She angers me so much. She was needy, irresponsible, and lazy. And to throw it back in my face saying I should have had more confidence and gone for what I wanted is just ridiculous. You mean like pursuing a married woman? Going after something you are not supposed to just because you want it? Cheating on my spouse because it feels so good?
In the end, she didn't turn out to be a very good person. She was a lousy wife, terrible friend, and then was just rotten. God only knows why I loved her so much. I know I had my doubts earlier in the marriage when I struggled with her poor habits, but I learned to adapt and to love her just the same. Is she really saying I should have stayed on her like a nagging parent trying to get their teenage child to pick up their clothes?
Sigh. I know she doesn't represent all women, but she is the only frame of reference that I have. Articles like that Yahoo one unfortunately confirm what my wife said to me and it matches up to a lot of what I have read on a lot of relationship forums. Half the posts are "Why are all men a-holes?" and the other half are "Why do women always dump nice guys." Seems like there is a bit of a disconnect there. Unfortunately, it does seem like a lot of women would rather have an a-hole who is nice on occasion, rather than a nice guy who caters to them.
Lessons learned, I suppose. Now its just simple matter of dusting off the old self esteem after my wife of 8 years told me I was too nice, unattractive, and then reinforced what she thought of all my love and sacrifice by cheating on me. No problem, that is an easy one to overcome.
Good thing I am a positive person right?