OK this is kind of huge to read I know. But it is what I said in my e-mail reply after he sent me the message I posted on Friday....obviously I didn't follow the 48 hour rule I replied to his message 40 minutes after he sent it.... anyway here is what I wrote, what do I do NOW??
Dan--
I have no interest in talking to her. I do not love her (I love YOU). I don't really hate her either, I just think she is pathetic to keep sleeping with a married man whose wife wants to be with him and has never tried to hurt him. I am not sure why you think I would want to talk to her. There is nothing gained by my speaking to her. And if you think I want to compare notes with her about you then you don't know me as well as you think. Complaining to her about YOU? Why on earth would I do that? I don't ever want to be on her "side" in things...
I wanted, always wanted to be on your side. I have thought that I was always on your side. I don't know if you can't or won't get it, I want to see the ugly side of you. Not b/c I like it, but b/c it is part of you. I want you to share your thoughts and feelings with me b/c I do share my thoughts and feelings with you. You were my best friend. I wish you could be again....Do Doug and Nathan love you more than me? Do you think I would just walk away if I saw all that lay inside of you? I haven't up until this point. It would help me love/trust you more to know you felt you could open up to me. If I have said or done things that make you think you cannot talk to me, I am so sorry. If there are things that needed to change within me, I would hope you could find a way to tell me. I have always wanted to have you confide in me.
PLEASE do not do anything to cut your time on earth short. Not just for me, for your kids. They need their dad! They love their dad. And I do too, just wish he came out of himself more often and let me see him again...
Re. not being fit or deserving of anything I give you, I hope you listen to the CD I gave you from church last week. It talks about how we are to love our spouses REGARDLESS of what they have done to deserve it. I didn't ask you if you were "qualified" to receive my love. I hope you know I have always tried to give it to you freely no matter the circumstance.....
I hope you don't mean it when you say you can't stop lying to me. I hope that you can. Because whether we stay together or whether we don't (and I don't know yet what it will be), we are Nate and [censored]'s parents forever. You can't keep lying to your kids' mom. We need to be a team for them. They love us both way more than we deserve......
I don't need you to be funnier, smarter, cooler than you are, etc. I fell in love with the Dan that was skinny enough to be called Plywood Butt and had big ears, too. And I also loved the Dan that put on weight when he got the office job, and grew into his ears. And loved the Dan that became the father of my kids....I have never wanted you to be anything but you....I hope you know that. If others need you to be someone else, screw them. You were a pretty great Dan in my opinion before the past few years, and I have seen that great Dan often in between, just not as often as either of us would like.
You hate women you say, with one exception, Sydney--does that mean you hate ME? I hope not.....no matter what you've done to me I haven't truly hated you yet.....hope I never do
I really hope you get into counseling ASAP to try to find "you" again. And you might not be the same "you" you remember from years past. A lost has happened since then. You may be an entirely new "you", but with the good parts of the old "you" mixed in. You don't need to know who you were to know who you are or can be, I don't think. Think about what you WANT to be and aim for that. You have been successful at anything I have seen you try to do professionally, so I know you can do this, too.
You don't have to fix "me". I am working on that all by myself. You just need to work on you. Even if it meant checking in some place for a weekend to get a jump start (I know you wouldn't go longer than that and miss a day at your new job and that is ok too), I think that might help but this is all your life and you make the decisions for you. If your dreams are falling apart you will have to look inside yourself to create new dreams. I am sure they will involve the kids and maybe me, but I know for sure the kids. They can't wait to grow up with you for a dad. And I know that you do have dreams still and you can reach them.
You say that your relationship with Stephanie has done nothing but complicate your life. So I will say this again just this one last time. She has to go. Period. Whether you stay with me or not. Whether you stay at your job or not. Whether anything else changes or not. SHE has to go. I can't see how being with her can ever help you meet any of your other goals or dreams. And you know I will not stand for you to have the kids around her even for one minute so the more she is around the less they will be. It is hard to cut that off, I am sure. But that is why it has to happen ONCE, and be done with. End it and leave it alone for good or it will just continue to follow you wherever you go. You can't slowly "leave" someone, it isn't fair to anyone...
And you say I deserve happiness and you hope it is with you and you hope I can be patient. Well, I can be patient with almost anything regarding you, I hope you have seen that in the past 16 years. But I cannot and will not be patient with the cheating factor anymore. Tolerating/forgiving/avoiding/ignoring it has only gotten me more pain. So if you want there to be that flicker of hope for us to salvage, or I would prefer, rebuild entirely our marriage relationship, she has to be gone. Now. This minute. I can't bear to watch another week/month go by with you stringing us both along trying to make a decision. Maybe I am bad for you too b/c I put up with so much. But as your wife, whom you seem to still want to be with at least in time, I am telling you this is a defining moment. If you don't give up Stephanie NOW, there will be no time in the future when you can have me back in your life as anything more than Nate and [censored]'s mom. If you can give her up NOW and let me know that you have, then that is a step on the road to seeing if we can be "us" again once you are "you" again. I hope that was clear as possible for you, I am sure it was. You have to amputate the relationship if there is any hope for ours. Honestly even if there isn't a future for us, I don't see anything healthy in continuing that one....
Finally, you said you need time away, from me and the world and her. Again, the her needs to be permanent. But time away from me and the world? Do you have a plan in motion for that? Am I to avoid contact with you at all cost right now? If so I guess we need to set up visitation schedules ASAP so you get the kids every weekend and I guess I am kicked out of our home on weekends?? The kids will want/need some family time so we will have to figure something out.
I can hear the pain in your words. I know you are struggling. So am I. I had a dream too, of a family with you. Of living on the farm with you and Nathan and Sydney. Of playing in the pasture with them, watching Sydney in dancing and Nathan in 4H. Seeing you get into the judging and auctioneering like you say you always wanted to do. Seeing you and LeVerne take Nate out in the tractor for some fun....I dreamt we could really be together for our whole lives. That you could honestly trust me, because on some level I think you know I would never hurt or betray you, at least I have always tried not to....I hope somewhere deep down you still have that dream.
Please let me know what you want to do this weekend. I am hoping you can get help AND rest, sooner rather than later. Originally tonight you said you wanted to come down this weekend and RELAX with us. Did you really intend to include me in that? Do you still want me in that equation. As you know as long as there is a glimmer of her in the picture that won't happen, but otherwise........
You can rest assured knowing that [censored] and Nate always have loved Daddy and always will. And so will their mom.....whatever may happen
