Puppy - because I also could have written this myself (from her letter to you:)
"I have NEVER had time to find out who (wife's first name) really is. I was, (wife's first name), the daughter who lived at home, to becoming, (wife's first name) the wife, and then (wife's first name) the mother. I missed going away to college and living on my own and learning what it's like to just be "me". I feel like that is the part that causes my restless nature. It has nothing to do with not loving you, but everything to do with trying to find myself. When kids go away to school, they really learn what they are made of and learn so many of life's lessons. It helps them to grow and become the person they are to be someday. It teaches them confidence. When they are finally ready to comitt to someone in marriage, they are truly ready to give up the single life and live alongside someone. I wish so bad that I had gone away when I was younger, or lived by myself for awhile. Maybe it wouldn't be coming back to haunt me now. Although divorce was scarey, I have to admit that I was looking forward to being a single person so that I could experience what I didn't when I was younger (and I was also sad because I didn't want to be away from you and at times the kids). I'm totally letting things all out to you here, so I hope you don't take it personally or get upset by what I say in this email. (Puppy), what scares the hell out of me, is that while I do love you, and I love our family and don't want to split up the family, I honestly don't know if I will ever NOT feel like this. If I don't have the "experience" I missed long ago, and never truly find out who I am, will I ever feel content and happy? Or will this feeling just continue to creep in and once again show its ugly head? Maybe a counselor can help me to get a handle on these feelings, I don't know."
I also never had a way to find out who I really was. I went from home to marital home and kids - - no in between time for DQ to play with her feelings, emotions, body, nothing. I basically remained an emotional teenager for the first 10 years of my marriage because the marriage froze my personal development. I instead DID develop into a pretty good mother and friend and employee...but not a sexual person nor even just a well-balanced individual.
There is intimacy that come from being in a family and having children, and because I lacked the maturity needed to explore sexual intimacy, instead I immersed myself in the family intimacy and parental intimacy. And since I felt so full of intimacy, my sexual urges were very tempered. They WERE THERE though. They just did not really feel comfortable to me because all I could do and be was young mom....not hot, wild, sexually free single woman. Having never had those experiences really stunted my growth.
When I started making noises about being unhappy in my marriage, was when I my personal development was seeking expresssion...and to ME at that time, what that felt like was that I wanted to be single and free to be sexual on terms OTHER THAN those that my husband set out for me. That is what it FELT LIKE to me, but I now understand I could have explored this sexuality with him within my marriage. Unfortunately, as I described above, he just figured I wanted to be a slut and f*cks lots of guys and that I was morally impaired. Want to know a secret though? I didn't actually want to f*ck a lot of guys, I wanted to go on lots of DATES and do fun things that had nothing to do with being a mother!!! But going on those dates and having that fun MADE ME want to have sex. Because that is normal in the single world...you go on this great date, it stirs your desire, and then you have great sex! Those dates could have been with him.
We needed MC, so I'm really really glad you and your W will be going to MC. It may have saved our marriage and may have made our sex life live up to its full potential. Instead, he assumed he was right, I was wrong, and he watched me walk out the door.
In the quoted part of her email, she is baring her soul to you. She is admitting that her personal development has stopped because she doesn't feel she can grow as a person within the marriage, because she didn't get a chance to do it before getting married. She is afraid that will hurt your feelings and make you feel like she didn't want to marry you, which isn't what she's saying. She is saying that she didn't follow the proper order of her own development by getting married so young, and now she's paying the price for it.
