Me 17 months on - detached and dating

[hotwheelsaust]

After the meeting and spending time thinking about it all, I sent an email to the W asking 3 questions.

Wife,
I do this with a heavy heart, knowing that you have most likely got sick of this type of questions.
For me to get some closure, I need to ask three questions of you. Could you please be brutally honest about the answers. I can and will accept your reply. These questions/answers are only between you and me, I will not be speaking or taking them up with anyone else. You don't have to answer straight away.
1. Why didn't you fight for our marriage? Why didn't you drag me to marriage counselling or go yourself (if I was stubborn not to)? I know you mentioned in a reply a long time ago, that you knew I loved you, but I didn't show that love to you anymore.
2. Would we be separated/divorced if we didn't go to Emerald (country area for work)?
3. Do you hate or feel let down that I instigated the divorce?

I enjoyed seeing you the other day and I truly do wish you all the happiness your new life brings.

All the best
Hotwheelsaust

I got a reply within 24 hours:
"Dear Hotwheelsaust, I understand you need answers to these questions and I will be honest with you.

1. Why didn't you fight for our marriage? Why didn't you drag me to
marriage counselling or go yourself (if I was stubborn not to)?


I always did know you loved me no matter what you acted like, did or didn't do. It just wasn't enough for me to know that and still have such loneliness and sadness in our marriage. I have thought about this many times and talked with my counsellor about it also. My attempt to try and fix and help the situation was to take you to the doctor and try and help the depression and anger that you had while we were at Emerald. Right or wrong it's all I could think of to do at the time.


Looking back I struggled with feeling extremely lonely and isolated. Luke was my support and my rock while you retreated further into computer time and running and ignoring us. I see that as your attempt to cope with it all also. Knowing I would lose Luke at the end of the year was too much for me and I didn't think I could cope with you on your own when I was barely managing myself.


When I tried to talk with you about feelings or problems we were having you would either ignore me, walk out or become angry. You would often say "I don't care" in response to me questioning or trying to talk about problems. It felt like love, frienship and respect were gone. I will add here that I was very bad with communication. I was scared of being ignored, I was scared of conflict, of upsetting you or making you angry. I tried to pretend that things weren't happening and just hoped it would get better. I was scared you would be angry if I asked you to come to marriage counselling and I felt the answer would be "I don't care." I felt that I couldn't take that risk and didn't want to fight a losing battle. Please understand that I am owning my own part in this, my own lack of confidence and communication did not help either.


I felt that what I truly missed was having a friend, someone who would support me and make me feel that everything was alright and that I wasn't alone. I started to think that if my husband/partner wasn't acting like my friend then I needed to either be alone or find a friend to support me. I was also scared that you would decide to leave me or in the worst case scenario be depressed enough to take your life. I am always grateful that was not the case.



2. Would we be separated/divorced if we didn't go to Emerald?


That's a tough question that I have often thought of and wished I knew the answer to. I suppose we can only speculate about that. I did think you changed and became angrier, more isolated and defensive after you joined the bike club but I thought that may just have been because of some of the people having an influence on you because you spent time with them. I will say that for my part I still struggled with communication and tended to have my own life separate from you with church and music and family things. I think we were living separate lives in some ways.


Having to be sent to Emerald made things much worse for both of us but I only wish I knew the answer to would we be separated if we hadn't have gone to Emerald. The only answer is maybe, maybe not.


3. Do you hate or feel let down that I instigated the divorce?


No, I don't hate you at all for instigating the divorce. Even though I know I brought about our separation I could never bring myself to start divorce proceedings. I don't know why. To be honest a small part of me still thought maybe we might some day find a way to work it out. Part of me thought that it was kinder and better to just end it fully and let you move on and try to move on myself. Part of me again was thinking that I needed to be free to change and grow up and work out who I am in life and what I wanted. I actually think going to Emerald caused me to have a form of break-down and I think that's part of the reason why I became sick at that time. I wasn't coping.


If you are happy with GF, and I hope that you are, then you deserve to be free to get married again if that's what you both want. If that's what you want then obviously you can't stay married to me. That's why I didn't fight it when you instigated the divorce proceedings. To be honest I felt sadness and regret but definitely no hate towards you. I apologise that I have taken so long to be anywhere near able to speak with you and write these things.


I also enjoyed seeing you for lunch the other day. Thanks for taking the chance on that and spending that time with me. It was nice to be able to relax and have a laugh with you.

Wife. "

While it may/may not have been the wrong thing to do, I needed to do this for me.
Now (and this is where the vets would probably say "told you so") this is where more questions are asked rather than answered.

Does it sound like the W is realising how wrong the separation was? Does she feel responsible for some of it? Does she have any interest in the future of the marriage?
Or does she simply recognise the separation could have been done in a different way?

Some things I still question are: not mention of the OW. No mention of why the rush to separate all assets. No mention of questioning or fighting when I mentioned I am applying for the divorce.

Am I thinking unnecessary thoughts over some answers that don't really mean a whole lot?

In the meantime I still have my beautiful partner of 15 months. Still planning a great future with her.
It is just these replies has got me a bit confused with everything.
What are people's views on this?