Who is this woman & what has she done with my wife

[THX-1138]

Well,

I am still unsure about how to go about this "being dark" BS. What I do know is this: I am now moving into an angry stage of my personal grieving process. I have become sick and tired of feeling like the human punching bag of my soon-to-be ex-wife. All experienced while she looks upon the entire ordeal as an act of personal transformation and liberating growth for herself. Oblivious and happy. Flirting, and making herself available to other men.

And I am sick and tired of being sick and tired.

This life is not healthy for me. I cannot control my feelings. I can only control what I do, not how I feel. What I do can effect change in how I feel. Therefore, actions are required. Changes in assumptions and plans are required. A new attitude. Required.

Most of my confidants and my counselor are making insinuations that I really should be thinking about moving on, visualizing a life without W, for my own mental health. No one who knows us believe she is ever coming back. I am seriously doubting as well. More doubts now than I ever have allowed myself before.

And frankly, I am so hurt, angry, revulsed, humiliated, depressed, and shattered, I am not sure that a reconciliation would be possible - or even advisable anymore. It's easy for me to admit that I do want her back right now. Today. Tomorrow. Next month. But if she were to actually return someday, I would be so hurt, so angry, so betrayed; I might make our possible future together into a nightmare as bad as the current one.

A significant part of my inner core wants to exact a revenge on her for this betrayal, this violation, this careless evisceration performed on me by the most important person in my life. Being in a situation where one requires almost limitless apology, abasement, and reassurance from someone I no longer trust, nor believe in, seems like a bad idea. I wrote that: I no longer believe in my wife.

Obviously, the demons in my head are raging right now. I write this from within a fugue and without pausing to consider logic, or how my feelings are likely to change and soften over time. (Or by this afternoon.) This is a cathartic bellowing. Perhaps my feelings will change, that this screed is a childish breaking of dishes, a tantrum, me screaming at G-d. But there is some truth to what I have written. I am changed. I am not the man I was.

____

Facts: My wife is having a grand time right now. She feels liberated and happy. She already has moved on. She is living as a single woman, and has discarded her responsibilities like brushing the confetti from the shoulders of a New Year's party dress.

She has discarded her wedding band, is taking birth control pills, and has made herself available to other men.


Facts: I am having a bad morning.

I have had good times recently. For as many as several hours a day, I don't even think about this stuff. Amazing. I am in recovery.

Proposal: Should I seek comfort in the arms of another? No. Or no? Why not? If the person whom I seek out is aware of my mental state, my damaged persona, and is preferably in a similar place herself, I see little reason to hesitate. (I am aware that there is a steady stream of recently divorced women, some of whom might welcome my conversation and company.) Am I ready for this move? No, not yet. But I don't see myself standing for an additional six months. This week marks the half-year anniversary of my wife's ILYBINILWY separation speech.

My analyst suggests seeking female companionship right now is an acceptable(or even good) idea. She understands I need to grieve for a while longer, and that I am not ready yet. But she also implies that moving on is necessary in order to heal myself. She does not see the harm in seeking a similarly damaged person to help me through this. Ha! Realization: I might help a similarly damaged person through her own nightmare. Now, I can claim altruism as motive. Rationalization is fun!

Analogy: For 23 years, my wife and I have been playing Milton Bradley's Game of Life together. We have been choosing cards, spinning the wheel, living together, loving together, huddling together, moving around the little paths together, learning and loving to play the game as a team.

But some time ago, and without my knowledge, she began making secret plans to leave the game which we have been playing. She made plans to leave our playing field. She began to entertain thoughts of playing a different game, with new partners, on a different playing board. A new board where I cannot follow, and where I may not ever visit. I can only watch her game from the weak distance, through a scratchy piece of glass and listen to snippets of the new game on a scratchy AM radio. And because of our children, I will be obligated to watch her game through that scratched and cloudy glass, forever. I cannot even turn away from it, not even if I want to. The only thing I can do, is to learn how to bury the pain of watching.

My wife has left our playing field. She has knocked over the pieces, taken the ball and gone home, folded her hand, and quit the game. With these deliberate actions, she has emotionally kicked all my teeth out, and stomped on my heart.

She is in the process of destroying our financial security. She appears barely cognizant of the wounds she has caused in our children and to members of both families. She has left the game and gone to a secret dimension where I am not welcome. She has cast aside her wedding vows, and her ring, and has made herself available to others.

A concept: Love. What is love? I know what it is not: Love is not the pitter-pat of a teenage crush. Love is not a thumping of the heart, or butterflies in the stomach. That is immature, teenage love. Mature love is different. Mature, grown-up love is an intellectual decision; a decision to cherish and honor another person, through good times and bad.

But there is more. Mature love is exceeded by an even greater type of love. This is called marital love. Marital love is mature love, but also requires commitment. An commitment arrived at jointly ,to cherish and honor reciprocally. Both parties agree to love each other, without condition, and without limit. The agreement is binding unto death. There is even a legal contract for this. This contract is the marital vow.

What happens when one party decides to void her half of the contract? Decides unilaterally, to stop loving, to stop cherishing, to refuse to honor her husband? She seeks to legally end the marital agreement, her contract, and her love for her husband.

ILYBINILWY

And here I am.

That is all for now.