Ooooh just saw your post after I posted mine! The feelings and experience you've expressed is exactly what I realized I had been doing in my marriage. I spent about two years being a "Stepford Wife" trying to make my husband happy and convince him to stay. I lost me!!!! And I finally realized I didn't want to be with someone who couldn't be happy with who I was, and just accept me for myself. Both the positive and the negative qualities.

And I finally realized if I couldn't make him happy after trying so hard and for so long, then he needed to go out and figure out his own happiness. I finally accepted that I didn't want to be with someone who was miserable being with me.

There is no arriving, ever. It is all a continual becoming.