Going the Distance (Saying ILY Pt. 6)

[mtb1981]

I've also really been fighting the urge to pursue lately. I know it is thw wrong thing to do. I know my W and I know that she is not really happy at all right now. I also know that she has way too much pride and ego to turn back at this point. All the lies, having her uncle buy new beds for the kids and fixing the van, and everyhting else she has done make it too hard for her to explain wanting to R. So I'm afraid she's going to keep barrelling down this path she's created. Looking for attention in all the wrong places from all the wrong people. I have been told by several people that she is hanging out with people that give her the attention she craves and tell her the things she wants to hear, but they really don't care about her. They are just using her to get what they want (most likely sex or drugs). I know that at this moment she is not someone that I want to be with, but it is so hard not to think that I cannot help her...

She went through a period like this in high school where she hung out with people for attention and was being used. We had talked about it several years ago when she was getting counseling after rehab. She realized that she was being used by these people and just craved the attention because she didn't get it growing up. That when she met me, I was different. I cared about her and wasn't just telling her what she wanted to hear so I could get something from her. That she was grateful to be with me because of that, and I helped her to realize what was happenning in her life and break the cycle. She was finally able to be loved and to reciprocate that. Then the relapses began, and she was back to being selfish only caring about herself. (Prescription narcotics turn the most amazing people into emotionless zombies)...

I recently found some letters she had written to herself during this time that her counselor had her do as homework. A letter to her old self and a letter to her future self. The letter to her old self focused on her forgiving herself for making bad decisions and apologizing for putting herself through those things. Knowing that she deserved better, but couldn't realize it at the time. There was a lot of acknowledgement about how her mother neglected her growing up and how her mother's alcoholism affected her. The letter to her future self was how she wasn't going to let these things happen again. That she has a wonderful, beautiful family that means the world to her and to stay focused and not fall back into old patterns...

It $ucks because I worry about her a lot, and lover her to death. The worst part is that I know it is out of my control. I just wish there was something I could do. And I've been having these moments recently where I feel like I need to do something. Sometimes I want to give her those letters, in hopes it will snap her out of it, but I know it won't. Sometimes I want to invite her to go to the zoo with me and the kids so she can realize how much she loves her family, but I know it won't. Sometimes I just want to tell her to come home, put all this in the past, get the help she/we need and work on a new MR, and she'll we can fix things, but I know it won't...

Sorry for the rant, but I hate seeing the one person I've loved more than anything hurting and ruining their life, and there's not a damn thing I can do about it. That being tied in with the "what ifs" of those things working if I did try them, but I know they won't...