a young marriage in trouble

[lnlyshp]

Still struggling today. I am so torn on how to move forward. Hope is fading. I know one of the rules is to never give up no matter how dark, but sometimes things feel pitch black. Here is the letter I wrote in counseling, hopefully it will help some of you understand my sich or even help you in some way:

To whom it may concern,

I am writing this letter as a means to say goodbye to my old relationship. Although it pains me to do so, it is in my best interests to leave that relationship in the past and move on to become a better man and a better father.

When I think about the reasons my relationship ended, I think about my behavior and what kind of person I became because of it. I became a very negative person, partially through my own bad habits, but partially because I felt that I could never make my wife happy enough. In the future, I am going to work towards being more positive and confident in myself. I want to appreciate the good in life.

I also think about how jealous and overbearing I became. Being jealous is normal when you love someone, but I took it to a place of being controlling and not allowing her to live her life. I realize now that I have to accept the things I can not change and let people make their own decisions in life.

I think about how complacent and lazy I became during the relationship. Bad habits played a part in this as well, but so too did my behaviors. I thought that since we were married and had a child that I did not have to work so hard anymore. I realize now that I should have tried much harder to make my wife happy, that I should have made more of an effort to sacrifice "rest" to spend time together.

I have so many regrets about who I have been, the choices I have made that hurt my family, and the ways that I treated my wife. But I cannot change the past, I can only work towards changing the future. I no longer have any hope that my marriage can or will be saved, but I can still make improvements to my life to become a better person. I must improve so that my son can have a good role model for a father, so he can have someone to look up to.

So goodbye. Goodbye to my old relationship. Goodbye to the overwhelming negativity and cynical person I was. Goodbye to being controlling, overbearing and manipulative. Goodbye to being selfish, lazy, and complacent. Goodbye to my bad habits.

But "hello" to a new me. "Hello" to looking at the bright side of things and finding rays of light in a storm. "Hello" to accepting people as they are and letting them live their lives. "Hello" to living life for my family, making sacrifices for the ones I love, and always striving to make the people I love feel appreciated, and making sure they know I love them.

- lonelyship