All settled in 250 miles apart

[JWS]

Well for the last week since i moved her in, I have been so mad. In fact I found myself starting to hate her and wondering why I would even take her back. Today that changed and I found a different understanding. I am still down and feeling like it is over between us but I can accept that without hating her and truly be the friend I always thought that I was.

While I was moving old boxes into storage I discovered journals that she kept in college. One thing I know about her is she only rights when she is depressed, that is why I can not stop myself from reading them. So I read these ones too. I have always known that she was depressed but never knew to what extent. These go back to three years before we were married.

She talks a lot about being alone and lonely even though she knows I am there and always will be. She says she does not know how to tell me about these things and so it not worth saying anything.

A year and a half ago before she found her OM she told me that she knew what she wanted to do with her life. She wanted my job. She wanted to fly for the military. I did not handle it well. My only thoughts were as an officer and the pros and cons and how impossible it would be for us to live together enough to make it work and the other negatives and I did not acknowledging her at all. I said it would likely lead to us not working out like I have seen other couples. She took that as “if you do this I will divorce you.” The OM was the opposite and told her she could achieve the impossible, and she was hooked. Before I even knew about him I started to win her back by waking up to how important it was and supporting it. After he was out of the picture I was fully supporting and went out of my way to help her. It was only then that she realized the hardships we would face. She told me that she did not want to risk her family over it and thus the idea of law school was born as a replacement.

The thing is she began to talk about this dream in these journals 3 years before she ever mentioned it to me and I shot her down. In high school we both wanted to be in the military. I took steps to follow that dream she did not. I though it was because she changed her mind, but she has been living behind me since then. I am not sure why she could never talk to me but when she did I blew it and that’s a mistake I have yet to live down.

I want my wife back and I want to save my marriage, but way more importantly I want my friend to find herself and chase her dreams. There is a very important part of her that never finished growing up because she was following me, even though that is never what I wanted. So to hate her is just me being selfish and a misguided way of healing my own heart.