Hope it's not too late

[what next?]

she sent me an email. "Hope you have a happy birthday." for some reason that destroyed me. how can i have a happy birthday when my life is falling apart? i don't understand anything that is happening to me and i can't figure out what is going through her head. last year for my birthday she gave me a card that was a list of all the things she loved about me. maybe she was trying to convince herself but somehow between then and now everything good that ever happened in our marriage disappeared and everything she ever regretted got magnified. i'm so tore up right now. i was having a good day until i got that email. i am so lost and lonely but know that i can't reach out to the one person that i need right now.

i replied "thank you"

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She contacted me twice today. Both emails... the first one I didn't reply to because it didn't really need a reply and the second one she asked a question so I answered it and kept it short.

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Ok, now I have a serious question lol.

It looks like I have a very good job opportunity that would take me about 8 hours from here. I don't know what to do. If I take the job it will definitely put the LRT in high gear and is definitely the best thing for me to do in terms of GAL. How do I handle this? I don't want to talk to her about it because it might seem like a "threat" or an ultimatum. But I have to seriously consider the job because it is definitely in my own best interest to take the position. Her job could easily be transferred to the new location and we had talked about moving there before. I really don't know how to handle this.

Thoughts?

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anybody? lol

[sandi2]

You are not detached enough. If you are thinking a new job and a new location would be what your M needs.....I would discourage it. Those things could actually add more stress. If you see it as a way to pull her away from OM, it won't work.

What would your decision be if you were D from W?

Here's the thing.....you haven't decided yet and you are hoping that she will agree to all of this. You are hoping she will wake up and realize she doesn't want you to move away. Unless she was to have a falling out with OM....she will not want to move. Don't use this "opportunity" for a job change as some tool to pry your W in your direction.

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I don't think that there is an OM. It's not a tool it is the best thing to do for me. It is probably not the best thing to do for my marriage but that is my dilemma. I need to be looking out for me and doing what I need to do and I don't want the hope that we can reconcile get in the way of that. I'm trying to stay objective but it's pretty difficult.

If we were divorced I would spend 2 years at the new job and then start looking for something back home.

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probably backslid tonight with a long email reply to her telling me that she planned to talk to the lawyer next week or the week after... i don't know what i'm supposed to do though.

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ok... i'm going to post the email that i sent her. i need someone to tell me how much damage i did lol

.................................

I guess that you are just gone from my life? I really don't know how to process this. I don't think you can realize how hard it is on me when you to talk to me like I'm a stranger to you. I wish that there was some way that we could communicate without me feeling like I'm talking to someone in HR. I'm sure that I shouldn't be saying this to you because it might just drive you farther away but it is how I feel and I can't hide myself from you.

I don't know if this is shaping up to be all that you had hoped it would. Or if you are even letting yourself feel what is happening to us. We just spent pretty much all of our adult lives together every day and now you act like I am your next door neighbor that you have a dispute with over property lines. I can't understand what dark place you are in and I am sincerely scared for you. I know that if you aren't yet feeling the pain of this reality it will hit you someday and I hope that you know that I will be here for you when it does. I'm not saying that I won't go on with my life, because I will, but this wound won't heal because that is what marriage is. It is a bond for life and to tear that apart is not righteous. It is evil.

You might hate me for telling you this right now. I don't know. But what I am saying to you is the truth. I only have love for you and someday you will realize that. I'm sorry that I wasn't a better husband to you but I can promise you that it wasn't because I didn't love you or that I didn't want to be the best that I could for you.

The advantage of marriage is that you do become one. And you get to have two sets of eyes instead of just your own. You were able to let me see things about myself that I would have never been able to see alone and your rejection humbled me to a point that I could never understand by myself. I wish that you could see that I could provide that same experience for you but I believe that your ego is protecting you and you won't let yourself be burdened with any responsibility for why we are where we are. I hope that you aren't thinking that I am just blaming you because I'm not at all. I take full responsibility for pushing you away but I didn't understand what was going on. I just want you to see that when you hid your feelings from me it sabotaged any chance that I had to understand you and help us. Then when you came clean you resented the fact that after you told me how much you were hurting I was ready to look at things from a different perspective. I tried to tell you from the beginning that the only way a relationship will work is if there is complete honesty. Your inability to tell me what you were really feeling meant that I was treating symptoms and not the problem. But all that I wanted was for you to be happy.

I saw the torture in your eyes when you were trying to understand what was happening to us and I know that you were fighting between good and evil. You wanted to love but were scared to and I understand all of that. I know that you wanted to love me when I came out of the shower and you wanted me to lay with you. I think that you cried because you felt guilty for the pain that we were both in. I saw the look of fear in your eye when I started to drive off to go to Trina's for our second night of separation and you stopped me to tell me that you loved me before could drive off. I heard the confusion in your voice when you asked me if I thought that doing the Love Dare would work and I said I didn't know but that I was going to try. I felt the pain in your voice when you told me the night before I moved out that I have a lot of changing to do. I know what you are struggling with and I know that darkness has won. I realize that it has tricked you into believing that you are acting for good but that is what it wants you to believe. I know this with all of my heart.

I'm only telling you this (name) because I love you. It breaks my heart to sit here and write this because what I am doing is acknowledging that you are gone. There is no denial. I realize that the most important thing I have ever had in my life is no more. My marriage to you is over and the lawyer really has nothing to do with that. My bond to you is not on paper. I have never trusted anyone with my heart the way that I trusted you. I don't think that it would be possible for you to understand the level of betrayal that I feel and how this will affect me for the rest of my life. Marriage is not all good. It is a constant struggle for a lifetime between two people trying to understand each other and be there for each other. To break that bond in an effort to start over is only going to cause pain for you and me for the rest of our lives. I'm not saying that as a threat or to try to change your mind. I just want you to know what lies ahead of you. I'm sure that you think that I am angling you some how but I'm not. I haven't through this whole process and the fact that you have been more and more paranoid just shows me how dark the place is that you are.

I believe that the reason why you felt like you were having to "defend yourself" was because deep down you feel like what you are doing is selfish and wrong. I think you have demonized me to such an extent so that you can justify doing this to us. You have made me question my righteousness and made me feel like I am a monster when I know that I am an honest person that wants to do good in this world. That's all that I can do and I realize that I am human and will make mistakes but I will walk away from our marriage knowing that I did everything that I could to understand you and make you happy. I didn't do everything right but it wasn't because I didn't want you to be happy. Because I do. I don't know what more you are looking for in a husband and what you hope to find. I hope that you can find it someday and I wish that you could see that that's all that I want for you.

Maybe you have found someone that you think can fill all the voids. I don't know. I believe that you are telling me the truth when you say that there is nobody else but there is really no way for me to be sure.

I understand why you would think that ending our marriage would stop the pain and to be honest after the year that we have had it makes sense to me too. But in the end that won't solve anything and all that you can really ask of someone is that they don't give up on you. I haven't given up on you (name) and I want you to know that.

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well then i can just assume everyone thinks i did that perfectly lol

[ScaredinCanada]

well then i can just assume everyone thinks i did that perfectly lol

I was pretty sure before I even read it that it was horribly wrong. Then I read it and it was worse than what I thought! Not trying to put you down, because I'm going through the exact same thing.
The only way to deal with it is to stop telling them how you feel. You need to detach, find a way to be happy and content without them, then if we are lucky they may find their way back.
I keep doing the same thing. Yesterday me and W got into R talk and it just spiralled out of control as I got more and more emotional. She says she "cares" and only wants me to be happy. She doesn't have any ill will towards me she simply "doesn't love me anymore and she can't change how she feels". She has agreed to do counselling, and she's told me there isn't anyone else.

I was working on detaching, but because we live together still and we have 3 young children we still spend a lot of time together. I'm recommiting to detaching and reading DR book.

Just like some many other people on this board, we are going through this together. It's not easy - but what other options do we have?

Good luck and try and stay strong and positive.