I left my fiance about a month ago. She moved out before Christmas and I feel like a huge weight has been lifted off my shoulders. Actually, I became completely detached from her close to 6 months ago.
I vividly remember the tense conversations, the staying up to all hours due to the rejection, pacing the floors at night. The resentment was so intense.
We were together three years and attended 20+ counseling sessions together. I heard every excuse or concern in the world.
I quit pressuring her but in the end I lost desire, respect and was just pissed off! Her list would continually grow and grow. Looking back now I should of left sooner. But I loved her so much that I wanted to give her every opportunity.
During those three years she never made me any promises or say that she would try harder. It was simply a passive aggressive attitude even with all the counseling sessions! It was terrible so I know the pain you have been through.
Now I can focus my time and money on my 4 kids. They live 6 hours away and I am taking them to the mountains this weekend. I am 47 years old and was divorced 3 years ago.
I think the exercising help me keep my sanity!! All the weight lifting and walking.
I wish you well and hope she turns around. From my experience she will not. Sorry so blunt.
No hugs, just a nod of affirmation. My wife would ask me why I couldn't accept her the way she was. And she is right to question me, to feel hurt for not accepting her and for trying to change her. I want her to change. Or find some resource within her that will allow her to open up her heart or sexuality, or whatever. But that is up to her whether she does that. All I can do is ask her for what I need, and be open to whatever she is willing to give, even if that is nothing.
While I am learning to accept my wife, I have also learned to accept myself for who I am. I cannot deny my own sexual nature. I cannot deny the suffering that I have brought on myself by sleeping with someone who could not have sex with me. I can no longer pretend that I can live comfortably in a sexless marriage.
Now you know that accepting your wife, while accepting yourself, means that your marriage may not be tenable. Love is not enough. This is such a difficult thing to learn. How many years has it taken me? I think I can count the years in lost hair.
This knowledge - the acceptance of the mutual differences that you and your wife have - forces you to make decisions. I know you don't want to lay this letter on your wife now, but read your statement to yourself several times. Does it ever get any less truthful? How much more of your life can you afford to live without sharing the truth of your marriage to your wife?
I nod in affirmation.
SM
Your W has the right to remain the way she is. In the same breath, you have every right to want more. So if you can't meet in the middle, SOMEWHERE...well, then both have the right to make a decision. While she has the right to not even try and change, she must understand that she takes a terribly big chance of your moving on. Such is life.
It just straight out kicks you in the azz. For in accepting Other... can they, then, accept you?
I will always remember what Lil has said... "just because I love you, doesn't mean I can BE with you."
And then my shrink comes roaring into my head. "Corri. Marriage is not about love. Marriage is about how well two people can work together to solve their problems."
Put that in your pipe and smoke it. Fcking books and romance movies... but. A lesson I will never forget.
THE most important relationship and the one that has to be sorted out and clarified before anything else can happen is the R with yourself. The more you focus on yourself and how you are feeling and the less you worry about any reaction she might have until she has it, the better off you are. And it does become moment to moment instead of a constant regretting the past and fretting about the future. Whatever happens, it's better to live this way. I'm really talking to myself here...
What Lil said. This whole concept of "other", realizing she isn't the same as your fantasy of who she is...well it is ummm well, different. Realizing this sure makes a difference in you which shows on the outside as clear as day.
Put that in your pipe and smoke it. Fcking books and romance movies... but. A lesson I will never forget.