Wife officially walked away just over a month ago

[BigMac]

Journalling

One interesting thought, the last connecting email that W sent (on May 17) had a couple very honest points from her.

That was the one where she said she wasn't sure if she ever loved me, and I was the best she could ever get (In my heart of hearts, I am trying to still be the best she can ever get, and then work on building connection and love).

One of the other points she made was that she lost her identity, she had become entirely passive. Everyone in the industry new her as oh your are bigmac's wife. She wanted to find out who she was, what she wanted, etc.

I am finding that I needed that too. I had focused so much of my energies and efforts on her moods, her wants and needs, "US". I was so focused on rekindling our marriage, when honestly she was repressing a whole bunch of crap that she needed to figure out on her own. There was nothing I could do to change that, except change me.

So, just as she didn't know who she was, apparently I had lost who I was. Every single decision about me would be qualified with - will the W like it. As I look at my actions, that is a giant floppy man with no Mojo. It is unattractive, and it is bad for my soul. It led to me taking care of everyone else but me. This was especially worse in the last 2 years or so, when the W got sick. All my energy was focused on taking care of her, and none on me. I lost myself trying to find her.

Internally, in my counseling and reading it has become really apparent that I suffer from self loathing (I was raised by an abusive single mom). As I deal with that, as a take care of me I'm finding that I never want to go back to being dependent on anyone or anything (work is a big one) again. It just makes you feel bad about yourself, and makes you useless to the world.

It is kind of crazy that W and I share some of the same challenges that we are addressing during this separation. It does however work well having compassion for W. I know the past couple days for her must have been really hard. It [censored] to be in a new town, and figure out that you don't have as many friends as you thought. It [censored] to figure out that even though you are beautiful, people will eventually tire of it if there isn't something substantial underneath.

I hope that at some point, we are communicating in an honest open and caring manner enough that it would be safe for both of us to reach out to each other. She was my best friend for 14 years (more realistically, 11 or 12 of those 14 years). These are the times when a best friend is great to have, but because of our own communication and growing up challenges we can't be there for each other... and that is probably the best thing for both of us right now.