Grace in your heart...

[Treasur]

You're so right, OwnIt. It was a surprise. It shouts MLC. He is a decent person. I need to let him go. I think he'll always be in my heart but I need to let him go to fix himself or not.

I'm posting this exchange really as a bit of MLC sharing. I'm not trying to save my M. Too late for that, but it might help others to read. I'm not sure I'll stay on this forum for much longer either

I thought hard, and did reply, because there are so many practical things that have kept us stuck, not just legal stuff. My reply is in bold.

Dear W

It's very late or very early, depending on your point of view I guess. And I'm sitting here wondering what has happened to get us to where we are. Listening to Mumford and sons first album on repeat for the third or fourth time. What's going round and round in my head is that this is all so silly. So very silly. And it's left me reflecting on how we got here and how it happened. It is all so silly, I agree. It’s been bewildering. I listen to After the Storm a lot.

Over the past few months I've thought long and hard about my behaviour, my emotions and my feelings. What they've done to me. What they've done to you. I suppose most fundamentally what they've done to what remains of us. And the truth is I'm sorry for what I've done and for the things I haven't done. It's made a hard situation harder. I think at times neither of us have covered ourselves in glory, but I can clearly see my part in that and apologise. I could spend hours writing an excuse for it, and I have had my share of struggles to contend with along the way, but ultimately they're not the point. It has been much harder than maybe either of us wished, but in the end it is as it is. Good and bad. I’m sorry for the things I’ve done which have added to that, but I just flailed around not knowing what to do. To be honest, I had a breakdown. The multiple grief and confusion was too much for me. But last week I woke up and felt like me again which is nice. This storm has battered me but it hasn’t broken me.

And of course it's made me reflect on the past 20 years. A long time. On the good times and the bad and all of the things that have led to the now. And I suppose the now is what matters when alls said and done. I need to move on. You need to move on. We have talked and talked and emailed and texted and we're still stuck. In my reflections I've come to appreciate how very hard that must have been for you with everything else you have to contend with, and again, I apologise. The time for that talking has passed. We are different people now. We have both evolved, and I don't think either of us want to be stuck anymore going round and round and round in circles. We both need to go forward into whatever comes next. We are stuck. Recently I’ve wondered even if there is something subconscious or unfinished which is making us both choose to stick. I don’t know. We do both need to move on into whatever comes next. I don’t know what that is or if our separate paths will stay separate forever or evolve in a different way. I don’t know. Talking isn’t always the answer is it? You’re probably right that the time for some talk has passed; maybe for other things not, but not yet. I don’t know. We have both evolved, big crises do that, but I guess there is a core which remains too. This note sounds like some of you. I hope I sound like me too. I might like to be the one who applies for the Absolute, I’m not sure. I don’t know how you feel about that. I think we have to finish this phase to get to the next whatever it is. A fresh start.

And I don't altogether know what comes next for me. I might be running away and I might be moving forward but I'm looking at a new job which might be in a new country. Maybe it'll happen and maybe it won't but for me it feels like moving on. I hope it gives you what you want and that you will find what you’re looking for and be happy in your skin again.

And I guess it means we need to come to an agreement about how we split things up. I'll get my solicitor to send through what I hope will be a definitive settlement offer. It'll be fair, certainly fairer than they recommend, and a reflection of how things were for what I think of as both halves of our marriage. It'll probably take a few days but it will give us the chance to move on down the separate paths of our lives. I don’t know if the timing of your new job affects the practical stuff. Our old relationship is dead now, and it feels unimportant in some ways to be fighting over stuff and money. But I suppose it just comes with divorce, like a funeral. If we are both in a different place now, would it help to talk through things - money and what we can both do to make things easier now with all the detritus - before we get lawyers involved? To make a simple plan together that will work for us both finally? To listen to each other so we can each get what we truly need practically. Just to be less silly and make the ‘to do’ list easier. Selling two houses, getting divorced and my mother’s legal stuff all at once is pretty overwhelming for me. Call me if you want to do that. We could even talk on the 12th, a different kind of anniversary perhaps.***

There is still a part of me that hopes when things are all settled and finished that we might be able to sit across a table with a cup of coffee and talk as two people. Who shared a lot together. Good things and bad things. Happy times and sad. Whether it happens in a month, a year or longer. But I don't know if that'll happen. And I can be at peace with it either way. I’d like that too. Maybe it is part of the journey. The silence was always your choice, I think, so I’ll leave it up to you if you ever want to do it. Like you, I will be ok either way.