Newby here, desperate for some advice (thread 5)

[ForGump]

It feels like a fever to me, JR. I have ... I mean, my head has, come to terms with what is inevitable. I know I just have to suffer through what has been set in motion a long time ago, my fate. I know I'll come out the other end. I know I can be in a good place again. Yet, right now, every bone feels the ache.

My W has said nearly the same thing to me: this is not enough for me. More specifically, You are not enough for me. I still believe that a few years down the road, or maybe even many years down the road, she will find herself right back where she started, because the hunger she feels, the emptiness she feels, is within her. Her happiness is found to be within, yet she's looking outward. But her foolishness is not something I can control.

I have talked to people who are in second or third marriages, who now realize and admit that their earlier marriages could have worked just fine. They realize were young(-er) and simply did not know how to be happy in a marriage. That's where my W is, and there is nothing I can do about it. I hope she learns from this divorce, but she may not, and simply keep repeating the pattern, and contribute to the divorce statistics we read about, where 2nd and 3rd marriages have higher divorce rates. I'm seeing now that there is a lifelong pattern in my W's relationships -- romantic, familial and platonic -- and I'm a part of the pattern.

This all s[u]cks for the kids, but that's the mother they have, that's the wife I have, and there is nothing I can do about that. If she chooses to break up the family, there is nothing I can do about that choice. I can only control me.

Hope you check back in the forum once in a while.