Questioning what did I do wrong to cause my wife to leave

I tried to figure out where I went wrong. She told me many things she had issues with, and I didn’t fully understand all of them. She brought up a family trip we went on a year before and how I ate a sandwich when we were waiting in line to get into a pool with the kids. Apparently that was selfish and she was resentful to me for this. I passive-aggressively made fun of her for that, which ended up leading to an argument. It was not a good choice on my part. After the argument, I vowed to be more spiritual and kind in our interactions. Passive-aggressive behavior did  not help anything.

There are so many things I did wrong. Many of her points were fair, I just wish she had talked to me about this and had given me a chance to change. I can’t pretend I was always a great husband. My only excuse is that I just didn’t know. I thought she would tell me if there was a problem. I thought I was doing what I was supposed to do. I can’t excuse that, I guess I was just being naïve. I got comfortable, I took her for granted, and I got into a big rut. There were other dynamics too, many that I don’t fully understand.

I read the book Rebuilding (Fisher). It helped me understand why relationships fail. I recommend this book to everyone, it certainly helped me understand the stages of grief. According to the book, she took on too much responsibility with our kids and I took on too little. I took on too much responsibility in other areas, and she took on too little of those. As things evolved, I pulled back and became withdrawn.

She looked for someone, anyone who would treat her special. I don’t think this is either of our fault. Just the reality of what happened. 

There were differences in parenting too. She needs to do everything for the kids. I try to make them more independent. This makes her feel like I am not doing enough and makes me feel that she is doing too much for them. I can't do what she does for the kids. I don't think it is right. The older daughter is co-dependent on her and won't do anything without thinking of her mother. 

I don’t know this for certain, but I am pretty sure she is hooking up and/or dating my neighbor's son. He is five years younger than her and although she won’t say it, they spend a lot of time together. He is a man-child with no responsibility. Knowing this had led to my latest fit of crying spells over the last couple of days. It is a huge disappointment because I always thought she was above this type of behavior. I don’t think she ever did anything wrong in our relationship, and I trusted her completely. It really hurts to even think about this. Again, at this point, I don’t think it even matters anymore. I don’t even know if I have a right to be mad. I can only be hurt I guess.

As I reflected on this later, I realized that it takes two people to make a marriage work and two people for it to fail. She was placing all of the blame on me so she could feel better about herself and what she did. More on that in other posts, but I hope other people read this and understand that there is much more to it than what the other person says, even if that person is not willing to admit it.