We were doing it wrong

That title can mean a lot of different things can't it?  Well, let me explain what I mean.  My ex and I thought we were trying to fix things between us, but we were doing it wrong.  Again, these thoughts are mine.  Please don't think that I am speaking for her.  I am not.  I honestly do not know if she would agree with me or not.

Anyway, I didn't realize it at the time, but we were going about fixing things the wrong way.  I would say, "I'm trying as hard as I can.  I'm doing everything I can, but she's not working on things at all."  I felt like everything I tried just made things worse.  I was angry.  I had a ton of resentment built up.  I felt like she didn't appreciate me.  Honestly, I was convinced that she hated me and nothing was going to change my opinion.

I also felt like I couldn't be myself.  I was spending all of my time trying to be the person I thought she wanted me to be.  I blamed her for that.  I blamed her for that for a very long time.  That was my biggest mistake.  What I realize now is, I should have been working on being the man I wanted to be, instead of the man I thought she wanted me to be.  I think I'm a decent man, but I am extremely flawed.  I have made a lot of mistakes.  That being said, the man I want to be is a pretty good guy.  I should have been focusing on that.  I should have been focusing on being myself.  If I had done that, I think I would have been able to let go of a lot of the resentment I had.

What did I need to work on?  Oh man, that could take days and days.  I'll try to hit the main flaws though...  First, I assume way too much.  I am trying to become better at asking for clarification of things if I'm not certain I am taking them the right way.  Especially when the way I'm taking things makes me think negatively about the other person.  If I find myself getting defensive or upset about something, I'm trying hard to ask the person if I misunderstood their intention.  That's really hard.  It's so much easier to simply get upset and blame someone.

I can also make people feel like I think they're wrong.  I am very much an over-thinker.  I try to think through all scenarios.  I will think about something over and over again until I'm convinced I've figured it out.  That works out well in my job, but can be a disaster in a relationship.  I want to understand everything, so I'll ask people why they feel the way they do, or why they did something.  If they have a difficult time explaining, or if they say something like, "just because," I start to get frustrated.  If I'm not careful my quest for understanding can come across as judging, or disapproval.  The thing is, I know that I'm often wrong, I'm not great at showing it though.

Those are just a couple.  I have many more, but I want to get back to the topic.  If I had been focusing on improving those things about myself, the things I knew I needed to work on, I think things might have turned out differently.  I needed to just be myself.  I needed to trust that.  I needed to become the man I wanted to be.  The fact that I didn't was not her fault.  It was mine.  I can't blame anyone else for that anymore.