Getting Back to Me

[RealityTrip]

My sister's visit is going well. We are all having a good time. My W's brother phoned yesterday and he is driving down today with his D3 to join us. I am really looking forward to having him here.

Backing up a little bit. A few days after my W had arrived we sat in the den together. She let me know that her AP was very angry that she was here. That her AP had broken up with her (again) and will not even speak to her until my W leaves me permanently. The conversation was quick and then a few minutes later she shifted and was laughing awkwardly when she said this, " I feel like there is an elephant in the room." When I asked her what she meant, she said that we had not discussed when she would be leaving again.

I have honestly come to the place in the past few weeks that I no longer want to live this way. I have suffered enough limbo. She has been trying to choose between her AP and her W for over a year. I saw the text in Feb. 2012. 16 months ago. I am ready to move forward in my life with or without her. Although if I'm honest it's very scary but I feel that I need to push myself forward. My resentement for this limbo induced by her is growing and I need to just let it all go.

So I simply said, "Well let's talk about it."

She said she didn't know how long she was staying or where she was spending the holiday, with us or her brother. Yada, yada, yada. I could just envision her packing up and bee-lining straight for the AP's house to get her "fix" since the AP had cut her off and then back up on the fence she would go until she needed one of us more than the other.

I simply don't want that life for myself anymore. I told her that I had come to a decision and that for me, that decision was if she left again that our marriage would be over and I would move on. She was pretty angry at that. She didn't think it was "fair" that I just sprang this on her. I told her I didn't intend to tell her unless she left but that she brought it up so I felt that I should.

We spoke a while longer. She expressed more of the same. Confusion. Love for 2 women. Worried she and I can't get our passion and romance back. (to which my reply was, everyone only has enough energy to put passion and romance into one person and you have not been focusing yours in your marriage.)

So all of that took place last Wed. She is still here and we really are having a nice time. Her brother coming down is an added bonus and I'm so excited to see him. I have noticed her in a bit of a funk for the past 2 days. She has been loving and somewhat affectionate. But I know she is struggling and thinking of the AP who won't talk to her and the W who is calmly ready to walk away.

Is it weird that I feel bad for her? I do. She openly sobbed. And I mean sobbed in my arms in our bed for an hour last Friday. The kind of cry where you can't catch your breathe. I just held her and tried to help her breathe. She didn't say much during this time but a few "I'm sorry's" escaped. I don't know what the emotions were. It felt like guilt and shame but I don't know if it was over the affair or over the fact that she knows what she wants and will be leaving. I didn't ask. I was just there with her head buried in my chest.

I started this journey of growth and examining my marriage with the thought that when or if my marriage ended I would be able to walk out of it knowing that I had done everything in my power to work it out. I have. I have spent the past 16 months moving towards the goal of saving my marriage and challenging my own shortcomings. But at some point, I have to have a willing partner. At some point, my wife has to try. I know what it feels like to be loved by this woman. And this is not it.

So for whatever reason I'm feeling stronger and like it's time. Time to put myself truly first. Time to look at this situation and say to myself that it is not healthy and that it is holding me back. It's time to really detach. I cannot control her heart or actions but I can take care of myself. Living with her indecisiveness and the limbo and dysfuntion of her affair relationship are not healthy for me, for her, for the AP. I am stronger than this. I am strong enough to stop allowing these 2 people to take up space in my thoughts and cause me pain each and every day.

I love my wife. I do not want to lose her. But more importantly, I do not want to lose me.