Ok i have composed this letter which I will be reading to my wife tonight. Let me know what you think.
One of the tragedies of this situation is that it did take you telling me that you want a separation for me to understand the depth of your unhappiness. Over the years an unhealthy pattern developed. One in which, and I will only speak of my part here, I emotionally and verbally abused you. It wasn’t until you began to take extremely brave steps to take care of yourself that you built the confidence and strength to stand up to my behavior. I applaud you for your bravery and respect you more than I ever have for taking a stand to say, I am so unhappy that I am willing to separate from you to make the pain and abuse stop.
In turn the shock, slap in the face, kick in the head is exactly what I needed to finally own up to my shameful behavior. This caused me to finally be ready to do the kind of soul searching that would make having a healthy and great marriage possible. For the first time in my life I feel no anger and no resentment, I only feel a warm embrace of compassion. Like never before!
I believe I am truly seeing where you are at and why you are there. You have been walking on eggshells, due to living in an environment were you have felt you need to tiptoe around my moods in hopes of avoiding blow-ups, criticisms, dirty looks, sighs of disapproval, or cold shoulders, and where you feel you must constantly edit what you say. You second-guess your own judgment, your own ideas, and your own preferences about how to live. You began to question what you think is right and wrong. Ultimately, your perceptions of reality and your sense of self changed for the worse. I see that you have had enough of my angry, resentful and emotionally abusive behavior.
I see that you are merely trying to regain the ability to value yourself. To regain the feelings of hope and wholeness. To reclaim your core value, your ability to create value and meaning in your life.
I have broken through my denial of abuse and am now ready for serious confrontation and healing of these issues, I believe we can both heal now and hopefully save our marriage. This awareness has and will change my life forever. I know I can only show you small consistent changes, and I know that my words mean little to nothing at this point. I can only hope that these profound changes cause a big enough ripple affect to allow our relationship to become as happy and loving as I know in my heart, it can be.
Please hear and understand that I only have genuine compassion in my heart. I want nothing more than for you to heal from your emotional wounds. That’s why I now truly see, hear and value you as separate from me.
I prey that someday I will find a way back into your heart!
--------------------------------------------------------------- I will now be consistantly be telling myself until i truly own it, i CAN LIVE WITHOUT HER
