Informally separated from WAW, but DBing my best

[AlwaysTrying]

This is the letter I ended up not sending:

I'm feeling pretty raw right now. I try not to talk about my feelings or put pressure on you. I try, anyway. Right now I'm bursting at the seams. I try to distance myself emotionally, but still the Moon to my emotional tide is the hope that my children can grow up with an intact family. That hope comes and goes.

I wish that I could express my feelings about family and marriage without making you feel bad. I know you've made a very difficult choice. I know you don't want to hurt our kids. I know you don't want to hear this, but I don't think you accept the impact this will have on them. From what I can hear, you only accept the impossibility of saving our marriage. If you can't save the marriage, there is no use in torturing yourself over how we will be letting the kids down. I get that.

But I can't let it go. The thought haunts me constantly. I feel that if I can't give them this thing - a loving home, and a model of a healthy relationship - that I have failed them as a father in an unredeemable way. I can do my best, and I will, but this failure can not be erased. Step-dad and Step-mom don't fix it. And in the absence of a good model, the cylce usually passes down to the next generation.

I don't want this. But you do. You want a version of life that includes this. I have a hard time processing this. Obviously.

I want to be able to back off and just accept what you say, and give you what you ask for, without argument. It's not that easy. There is a lot that I can accept, but having two separate homes to bring our kids to is a line that is so hard for me to cross. When you say there is no other way, I take you at your word that that is how you feel.

That step will cause permanent damage to our children. S6 *needs* this to not happen. So yes, I try to find a way around.
W, I love you enough to let you go. I wish I could. I can not love anything in this world enough to let go of hope for our children.

I know you have tried, you are fed up, and you might just not have any left in you. I will follow you down that path when there is no other way. But I am asking you, on behalf of our future children, who are not yet here to speak to us, to take a peek with me down another path.

If you come with me for four sessions to meet with someone to find ways that we can keep chaos out of our children's lives that will allow you to feel comfortable in the house and feel that you are getting the space you need, I will feel that we really have done what we can to make this work. I feel a responsibilty to have tried that if at all possible. If it doesn't work and it really can't be done, then I will be convinced and we will build separate households.

I was angry (very angry) when I wrote it and I'm sure it's not my best work.