Maybell XXVI

[Underdog]

Maybell,

I really like the support you're getting from the others today. You're all good eggs here.

And do I really have to go to dinner with him and listen to the awful things he'll say to me AGAIN?

Just a gentle reminder that you *always* have choices, Maybell. They may be the best of yuck, but they are still there. Look, I'm not the mom who tells the girls that they HAVE to eat brussel sprouts. Try one. If you don't like it, I won't force you to eat things that bring you pain. Same goes here. Your interactions with your H have brought you pain. So do you need me to be mommy and tell you that you don't have to go? Ok... you definitely don't!

Part of me feels guilty at promoting my needs and desires above the commitment I made when we got married.

Ok, Maybell, it's time for a mini smack down. Your commitment contract was broken long ago. You've done what you need to do to keep the door open to reconciliation. Yes, there are posters here who have been successful on this path (shout out to you Bug and 25). For whatever reasons, their spouses didn't completely go off the grid and check out permanently. For the rest of us here, well, we never got the chance to make it up to the plate to take a swing. It's not your fault that your H won't give you the chance to have the M you both so desperately want (but are very disparate at this juncture).

If you were controlling (and there are a whole lot of us here in this amusement park), I'd say it was your fear and anxiety, and inability to manage them effectively, that drove that boat. Ok, I get this. But your H has a real problem with the porn, because he substitutes real life intimacy for an imaginary sexual experience that will be a bottomless pit of empty release and no connection. We're not here to compare tit for tat. You are genuinely working on your stuff. Keep going. If he's unwilling and doesn't want to see anything wrong with his choices, again, who broke the marriage contract?

Your efforts do and always *did* matter, Maybell. Maybe not to him, but they did to you. And the most important person you should please - every damn day - is yourself. You can look yourself in the mirror and say, "I forgive you for your faults, you're working on them, and you are a good person. You try to do the right thing." For me personally, it allowed me to sleep at night.

Is it wrong for me to give up on my marriage under these circumstances? Don't I deserve to free myself for someone who actually WANTS to know me and care about me, rather than someone who doesn't care and doesn't want to be around me? Somebody who has the integrity to stand by me and actually speak up for the relationship when things aren't going well?

No, it is not wrong. Again, you always have choices. The choice isn't that we all get a do-over here. Otherwise, we'd not have a need to post here. But staying married to a person who doesn't want to be married to us sounds like a life in absolute hell. It's like throwing good money after bad.

Nobody could ever accuse you of not being willing to look at your contribution to the demise of your marriage, Maybell. Continue to work on the things that you know prevent you from having close relationships with others, and more importantly, yourself. You can't go wrong there.

Like you, I spent some time doing a post mortem of my own marriage. The last few years of our living together was really and truly unhappy. I prayed every night for something to change. Well, I wasn't really specific about that. But I also prayed that God would bring me a man who wanted to love me. I had definitely inserted the face of my own husband when fantasizing about it. Then he left and I thought, WTF? But over some time, I realized that just maybe God knew my H probably was never going to want to want what I wanted with him. I'm really not trying to be Debbie Downer here, but I'm now free to have the kind of R I really want with a man. I haven't found him yet, but I'm holding out for him when we're both ready. I choose to believe that the foundation is being laid for that eventual event. The timing will happen when it's supposed to happen. And it's not going to be an emotional cripple who wants this job!

At the risk of sounding like a cheerleader gone off the grid, I wouldn't want your H back as he is either. He'd have to do some major auditioning to even win back the right for consideration at this point. Look at it this way: if he were to come into your life RIGHT NOW, would you want to date him as is?

And one last thing. That pole dancer fulfills a fantasy life for him. She's there as a prop, and it has everything to do with his very skewed relationship with porn and intimacy. BTW, I'm not anti porn. I'm just against it when it's the primary R at the detriment of reality. Your H appears to be one of these men who won't figure out why. So let go and let God?

Hugs, Maybell. Let go of that guilt. It's not worth the weight you carry it around. Don't make your back break carrying baggage that truly isn't yours.

Betsey