Pearl, This is great, thank you, and did help. I have been hurting more in these past few days than I have in a long time. I think perhaps b/c I know my move is upcoming and it's getting real, really real to move on. And dating a few frogs as of late only makes H seem all the better.
The one thing I really struggle with is "do I deserve love and respect" etc? B/c I was really awful to him at times. I feel that. And i feel that i got what i deserved when he left. He used to threaten that he would leave and he did, and i feel like i got what was coming, or something. I think my self-esteem is just in a really low place right now. And he's a different person but I feel like he's done w party stage and has his act together now in a mature, confident way (he just doesnt want me as part of that). He;s changed a lot, but in some ways for the better as a more confident person and less of a doormat (as he was at times during our marriage). In some ways he's now become more the man I wanted him to be. that is a hard pill to swallow.
It would be easier if he was still a total jerk, but I still see him as a really good person with a big heart and such a good husband...so i do feel like i pushed him away and don't deserve him, not the other way around. Somehow I've come to believe that he was justified in leaving, that I broke him down over the years, and this is payback time for me.
I need to let him go. I need to let him go. The hardest part is thinking that it was my fault, which also presents me from feeling like I will find love again.
Maybe it would be really empowering and freeing to send him the letter at some point in near future. You are right, he is already gone.
