I want my Monkey and Sheep Back

[beepee]

Wifey: Thanks so much for your advice.

What do you want?

I want to be happy, within. I want to reach a point where no one will ever be able to take that happiness away from me and I want to be happy either with him or without him. I just want to be happy. And yes, I do want to be in a loving relationship where I am valued rather than used and abused. I feel like he is capable of that but maybe it's just not with me, but a part of me wants to hold on to that and see if he can love and value me, I love him so much and I dont want to let him go. But I don't want to be used either and it seems very clear that he is using me.

Could it be that you were depressed BECAUSE of him and/or how your relationship was?

I was very, very happy and content in life before I met him. I was happy and in love with him in the beginning. Everything went downhill when he cheated. And I became severely depressed as a result of his cheating and his lack of communication with me about the whole thing. He hated conflict and never wanted to talk about anything that was in any way negative. And I became even more and more depressed when he would refuse to talk to me about anything. I was always making an effort to try and talk to him, all at different times to see if it would make a difference and he would always come up with an excuse, "we're having a good day, don't ruin it," "I'm sleepy, not now," "we have to go do a photoshoot, do you have to bring this up now?" "I just ate dinner, I need to relax" etc etc etc.

It is never easy to live with a depressed person. But is that all there is?

It is not at all. And I have admitted this to him so many times and I took responsibility for my behaviors. But it doesn't seem to make a difference. I became severely depressed over his actions and he didn't want to do anything about it EXCEPT push me to take medication and talk to a C. Which helps, but what about accountability on his part? He played a huge part of this and he wasn't willing to do anything about it, he wasn't willing to go to C with me.

Can you be happy with OR without him?

Right now, I can't be happy without him but my ultimate goal is to be happy WITHOUT him or anyone else. I want to learn to be happy with myself and I'm working on that now and I don't want to be brought back down over what he is asking me to do.

some people are not able to have healthy relationships because they haven't taken responsibility for their lives.

He is 37 and has always been financially unstable, has never been in a longterm relationship besides with me, and drinks and smokes in excess and avoids relationship talks. I don't think he has taken responsibility for his life but I think by leaving me, he is trying to. But he hurt me tremendously by going about it in the way that he did.

My wish for you is that you would make the hardest choice possible of letting him twist in the wind a bit. Perhaps the deadline he is up against will make him examine his life, or maybe not.

I don't want to respond to him yet. I really want to wait a week or so. I hope my heart will know what to do because right now, it's completely lost.