Afraid of change

[Jack_Three_Beans]

Hank,

This is very important, your friends and family will try to sway you, and when you are having very bad days they will.

Family/Friends tell me that its unfair that I'm stuck in Limbo and that when you guys spend time together as a family that your just making it to easy on her. I understand where they come from, they see the hurt/pain in my eyes and actions and want it to stop. They say she is selfish, stubborn and unrealistic. The tell me its time to force her hand, s#@t or get off the pot.

The funny thing is; how many of them would be here if they were in your shoes? Talking big is easy. Walking big is hard.

You already know why they are doing it.

DR says to trust your own instincts, on this. If you want to be married, then be married.

I personally took it step further and thanked them for their concern and advice. I told them that I was fighting for my marriage and if they couldn't support me in that choice, then this subject was off limits.

If they couldn't support me and couldn't keep it off limits then I wasn't going to be around them or call them, because I was going to need people who supported my decision down the road when I began to question it.

I told them that while I understood they didn't want to see me hurt and they only wanted what they though would be best for me, that I was doing this knowing I was going to hurt, it was my choice, an informed decision, and I wanted their help. I wasn't being weak or stupid or naive.

...It is about patience, and time, and forgiveness and changing the crap you contributed to a failing marriage. Establishing new patterns in yourself and with time and consitency making those changes real. A lot of other things too. Empathy, compassion, persistance, dogged determination, the ability to shrug off the most fatal of emotional attacks, spit blood and keep going...

Stuff like that.