W just sent me the following e-mail. My initial reaction is not to respond. Those of you who have followed my sitch know that W has rejected counseling and says D is the only answer. That my validating only fuels her belief that D is the only way and that she presses for my views and then fights them. While her perceptions about my behavior are what she feels, they are necessarily based in reality. In my pressuring days, I made it very clear that I don't want to continue living like this forever and want to build something new and special with her--which she says is impossible. Perhaps I am too "cold" to see an opening. Any thoughts?
i send this to you for no other reason except to get it off my chest and for you to consider. i know your way of dealing with things is to not deal with them at all. obviously that coping method has worked for you but it certainly hasn't worked for us and it certainly doesn't work for me. please understand why.
i do appreciate and understand that you care for me and that you never thought we would be in the place we are in. i never did either which i don't know how much you really understand that. however, knowing intellectually that you care for me when we don't relate to each other or manifest it makes it meaningless and irrelevant when we not living it in a way that brings any sense of happiness or fulfillment between us.
i've said a million times before, i built my life around you and the kids and to now have to face the reality that except for three children, i have nothing to show for it is devastating to me beyond what i think you understand. i feel like i had so much to offer, we struggled so much, and then i just became numb. i don't want to rehash all that - it is what it is and serves no purpose now.
but the here and now is what obviously concerns me beyond comprehension. because caring for my family is my life and it is all i know and it is all i have been doing for the past ten years, it is who i am. i can't just say - oh well it's okay that things are not what i want. i can't just put up a wall and find other distractions. i can't just focus on the little bit of temporary happiness i may derive from something. for me, every minute of every hour of every day i am defined by being a mother in this house - that is what my entire life is all about and is defined by. so can you even imagine doing all this with an immense emptiness and unhappiness deep inside under duress that is enough to bury you alive.
the way we were living - the emotional divorce, peaceful coexistence - was bad enough. but what we are living now is just not tolerable or acceptable. it is unhealthy and detrimental to everyone involved. it scares me - for my sake and for the kids sake - beyond imaginiation to think we are going to stay like this. and i know and understand it scares you to think about moving on and readjusting our life as we knew it. but moving on has to be better than this - it is not a death toll - staying like this is the death toll. it is unfair for the children, for me, and quite frankly for you to live under this everpresent, constant black cloud, to perpetuate the lie and to accept this way of life.
