Well, this is odd...my heart seems to be responding to a decision by my mind by hitting me with more sadness and pain than I had felt in a long time...I wonder why that is? I do know that pain is the way our bodies tell us that something isn't right - and that pain in the heart is also a sign of something not right...and so I wonder...what's not right? Of course, being separated from my W is painful - but being with her, if I am honest, was more painful than this separation - especially over the last five or six months...
So what is my heart trying to tell me? Is it telling me to wait? Is it telling me that there are still unresolved issues that I have to understand and heal through? Or is it just frightened at the thought of being cut off from someone that I love?
My mother asked me tonight, rather out of the blue, if I still love my wife - and I said, "of course I do. I will always love her." She then told me about two friends of hers who's children were separated for 2 and 4 years - and only just recently reconciled. So her motivation was a bit obvious - but the message was fine to hear nonetheless - it was her way of responding to what I had told her yesterday - that I was going to move toward divorce - perhaps she just sensed that it wasn't quite a conviction yet - despite my rational arguments for it.
Or perhaps it's just that I truly believe that divorce is a last resort - and that, having gone through it once, I do not want to do it again...but that's what frustrates me, I suppose, the degree to which the decision is out of my hands. I've even wondered if my wife didn't go up there this time just to put on her good daughter face and come away with financial support for a divorce - which I know she had talked about getting from her mother in the past...well...I would not put that past her parents, the great enablers that they are, and I think part of me just wanted to push for the D as a kind of preemptive strike...which, as I write out, seems all too motivated by the wrong kind of tension.
So where am I now? Feeling like a fool, actually - like someone who doesn't even know what he wants anymore. I spent some time reading about retrouvaille today - and wondered if was too late for us - of if there was a way for me to rediscover that healthier love for my W - and not just the love that keeps me in a state of misery...
We don't talk about anything at all anymore...and certainly don't have any R/M talks - which I think is good - though we hardly have any kind of communication at all. When she first moved out, I told myself to wait for six months and see what could change - for her or for me - just assess everything then, and see how I am feeling...Perhaps I should revisit that idea - and just continue to hold off on us - and take this time for me - and for the unreal amount of work I have to do in order to get my life back in order over the next few months.
While reconnecting with my dissertation chair, I've also been looking for and applying to new jobs - and also looking into what I would have to do to get a teaching position somewhere...having been out of the loop for over a decade seems to make it a bit trickier than I had expected...
Okay...I have more to do tonight - so I should get back to it. Sometimes I just like knowing that somewhere out there, someone is taking the time to care about what I am going through...that compassion helps me more than I can say.
