[broke]

Been up since 4am. First time in about a month that has happened. I had an epiphany and couldn’t stop thinking about it. I realized that my relationship with H right now doesn’t really look that different than my M with H a year ago. I still arrange my life around the kids and he still arranges his kids around his life. (Both of us do this to the extreme – both of us have work to do to change this). He still travels weekly for his career and that takes precedence over a lot, including time with his family. The only two things that are missing are intimacy and physically living in the same house.

What does this mean? H was right – our emotional connection was missing (he said it was never there – I disagree). We had grown apart. Our priorities no longer lined up. We were living more like roommates or partners than a M couple in love.

Why does it matter so much? Maybe I shouldn’t be fighting so hard for this M. Maybe our priorities won’t ever match up again – maybe we have just grown too far apart.

Now, I am not saying that you should just bail when things get tough and not try to fix it. But, because of the PA, our M is irretrievably broken and it will take an unbelievable amount of work to create a new M better than the old one.

As I thought about what our marital relationship became, I am not sure it will be worth the work. Ok, I should restate that – I think that I may be capable of moving mountains to regain my family and restore my M. But, I just don’t think my H will ever be committed to do that. I know that you will all say that is mind reading and fortune telling. But, I have known that man for 25 years. I know him better than anyone and he doesn’t really put in the work to create deep emotional ties with people. I was closer to his family than he was. And, I asked him to go to MC for years because I wanted to have a better M and he refused.

When I told my sister that he said we were divorcing because we didn’t have an emotional connection, my sister’s response was “I have know him for over 20 years and don’t have an emotional connection with him. If he doesn’t have one with you, who does he have one with?” So, I don’t think it is just me that thinks he really struggles with opening up emotionally to people. How in the world is he ever going to be able to commit to fixing our M when he can’t do that? And, fundamentally, I think we are no longer in sync because I believe that relationships with people should matter more than anything else. My H my believe this, too, but I just don’t see it with his actions.

Maybe my H was right when he said “I don’t need this M enough to settle”. But, maybe I need to consider whether hanging on to this marriage is really me settling. Not because my H is “less than what I deserve” but maybe because I deserve someone different than H and he deserves someone different than me.

Why am I sharing this very long passage with all of you? I am wondering if maybe this is the first sign of truly detaching. Has anyone else had the realization that maybe that when the bomb dropped that was part of the plan all along? Is this my first step toward acceptance that maybe my M may not be fixable.? Maybe God does have a different plan for me and it doesn’t include H in it. … I am just not sure either of us is capable of giving the other what we need now...

For those of you that read the whole post, thanks. I am exhausted and needed to get all my thoughts out there, but not sure they are as coherent as they could be if I got more sleep.