Got an apology from XH. Need advice now.

[AntoniaB]

Beatrice, I think I remember you saying once that you wondered if he and I were actually growing apart before he "snapped" and if this whole thing were a LIFE crisis/marital crisis that just happened to have markers of MLC in his behavior from the snapping point.

I think that is something that I questioned myself for a long time and I was really afraid to say it out loud, because to me it was harder to say that we might not be right for each other any more than to hold on to this being all his MLC.

But if I am truly honest with myself, I have to say that it was not all rosy even the past 4 or 5 years pre-bomb. Just because we had a great romantic side and attraction, just because we had a lot of similar likes and dislikes and got along really well, didn't make us compatible. I lost so much of myself in that marriage towards the end and psychologically I was an anxious wreck about my life, felt I was split between 2 identities that couldn't be integrated, and I had health problems. I don't want to get specific, but for the 4 years prior to bomb drop, I had a bunch of symptoms from congenital reproductive problems, and I was in and out of doctors' offices a lot. I remember seeing my naturopath about the things and she said all my health issues were "2nd chakra" and that meant they were tied up in my relationships. She kept saying why won't these resolve, when you have such a great marriage.

I have not had any symptoms from those health problems from the first time he left me onward. My body is still the same. No surgeries. But no symptoms.

My anxieties are also markedly gone. The only anxiety I have now seems to be about whether I'm doing the right thing for me in my relationship with him.

Believe me today has been a real struggle, because I do feel like I put the final nail in the coffin on possibly reconciling with him with my response. There is a big part of me that wants to take it back by emailing him "look, you still did something horrible to me, but I'm choosing to not dwell on it anymore." It's like there are two sides to me and one is going PUSH Antonia, PUSH yourself past that need to respond and WALK AWAY from the attachment to him. If he reads it as he's off the hook and feels good about himself, then he's not worth you ever going back to anyway because he lacks empathy. Do what is best for you; best for you is not being with him unless or until he REALLY looks at himself and changes into the type of man you'd want to be with, and that may really not be possible because you were too different in the first place.

I feel very unsettled by what I did but I also feel like I had to do it. And the strangest thing has happened today. I feel like I'm not in my house anymore. As in, it has been tough for me to live here in our house at times. I have felt for over a year now that something was missing from it. Well something is really shifting here today. This energy is just, wow. I can feel it. I was standing in my yard and I looked back at my house and felt like I was in a very strange place. I felt like I was on vacation, in VA, where we always used to rent cabins together, but that I was at a house rental somewhere by myself. I felt like I didn't live here. Like no one I knew lived here. I walked back in, same thing. It's a very strange feeling that makes me simultaneously sad but also a little hopeful that maybe he's finally leaving it.

Oh wow. I just burst into tears. He's leaving. He's leaving this place and I'm detaching and it hurts, my god it hurts. But I have to do this. I have to let him go.

I have held on to him for so long and it wasn't doing me any good any more and I have to do this for me.

Thanks for reading all this with me today. I know I've posted a lot but this has been the most transformative day of my life, I think, that I actually had a part in, because I didn't have the power to make any choices on that other transformative day, but I had the power today, and I'm scared, but I took it.

I will continue to post. You are all my friends and I want to continue to help.

I love you all.