Even though my wife… ex-wife coming out and ending the marriage was a shock, as I reread my therapy notes I can’t say that I was completely blind, deaf, or dumb.  There were signs. Significant signs.  Not just to the coming out part, but to other things as well.  I always was very doting on Danielle.  I am an affectionate and extroverted person who tends to wear my heart on my sleeve.  Danielle is the opposite.  She’s an introvert who internalizes many of her feelings.  It’s very similar to my identical twin brother Jason who is much more like Danielle than I am.  Jason lacks the spontaneity, the fun, and the impulsiveness that I have.  I lack the discipline, analytical reasoning, and patience that Jason says.  If Jason and I could go back into the womb and stay as one person, we’d be a perfect person.   With Danielle and I, it’s the same thing.   Since we’re opposites, together we make a strong team.  I do the bills, she sets up for parties.  I do the cooking, she plans the vacations.  It’s pretty cool.  But on the flip side, our needs are different.  I’m a physical guy who desires affection, love, and company.  She’s an introvert who desires alone time and Netflix.  I show a lot of affection and her affection is a lot with our daughter, but not with me.   So what happens when two opposites meet and fall in love.  I am passionate with my love for Danielle and she isn’t as passionate.  But that’s what made us different and I think what made us work as well.  It’s not like I became social during the marriage, I’ve always been social and an extrovert just like you’ve been introverted and less social.  My being social isn’t a surprise but it was like you and the Dr. Dick wanted me to change when I’ve been like this all along.  What have you done to change?  Why are you forcing change on me?  Maybe a compromise?  Maybe? You point out every single minutia detail of what I’m doing wrong, yet you hardly look at yourself.  I think you’re just trying to find all of this negative minutia to justify why you’re leaving the marriage.  

Even if it works out, your still not going to love me as much as i love you.

I knew back then that my love for her would outweigh her love for me.  I can clearly the remember the day that I told Danielle that I loved her for the first time.  We were a month into our relationship and we had just made love.  I looked into her eyes.  She looked into mine.  I said the three words, “I love you.” She looked into my eyes, smiled, and said, “that’s nice.”  I guess that was the first ego blow that Eric took.  Little did I know that there was going to be a bigger one about 23 years later because at the time, that was a biggie.  She eventually told me she loved me a few weeks later, so all is good.  I mean, all was good back then.  When she told me she loved me.  It’s not so good now.  Because of the whole divorce/coming out of the closet thing.  What I believe is that if you really want a relationship to work, you can’t change your partner.  You have to change something within yourself.  I’ve changed a lot for Danielle because I wanted this to work so bad and I didn’t feel the reciprocation.