Well, after a little sleep (restless, but sleep) I've come to grips with how badly last night went for me. I went into the evening with a plan, yet I let myself return to the old "not working" way of interacting with my W. The trigger was when the W said she stopped IC because she was being encouraged to continue to work on the R. I've seen this before the one time we attempted MC about 5 yrs ago. She didn't like what the C had to say, and said she was done with it.
We were able to work through things at that time, but I guess we were just accepting that the M wouldn't be exactly what we had dreamed it would be. There were plenty of difficulties, and we weren't equipped to deal with them satisfactorily. We just picked the things that were most important to us declaring what we would do, and gave in to the other on an alternating basis I guess. However, there were a lot of great times too. Family things, great sex, lots of laughter, and so on.
She made the comment last night that there is no incident or sitch that has led her to D. Just that she felt mistreated for our whole marriage. Not in a literal sense I know. Until recently, neither of us had a lack of respect for each other, and always tried to be pleasant with one another. I believe it's more that I disconnected from her and the family pretty early on. There was depression, financial difficulties, feelings of low self esteem, and more that led to that disconnect.
It's ironic that I was able to detach myself from my W and D's while married, yet I'm having an extremely difficult time doing it now.
I guess after some sleep I've come to the conclusion that I'm not ready to give up hope, as bad as it seems. Perhaps with last night I can truly move forward with no expectations. Maybe I really needed that one more awful exchange for me to realize I have to stop trying to reason or rationalize with her about what her decision means and just focus on me.
I'm going to try and do that. I wish I could just stop the pain within my heart. In fact, I wish I didn't love her so much. I do not want my marriage to end, but in a sense it already has and I have to accept it. I'm probably just afraid of her happiness without me in her life being greater than it was with me, even at its best. Especially when I feel (at least at the moment) that my life could not possibly be better without my family intact and loving.
Don't listen to the negative voices. You are going to be okay no matter what. It may not seem that way now but you will be. The sooner you let yourself believe that the better off you and your family will be.
M 39, W 34 M 15 S 14, S 12, S 9, D 7, D 6 Separated: 7/2/2012 Served: 7/10/2012 Divorced 11/5/2012
