Too late - I went ahead and had the talk at lunch. I told her that I have been really introspective in the past few weeks and that I have realized that I have been controlling. I have realized that this is not someone that I want to be. I have always let her be who she was, and in the face of this, I have acted in ways that I'm not comfortable with. I know some of you are going to be somewhat upset with this decision, but I have been laboring over it for some time. I essentially lifted my ultimatum because I don't want to attempt control - and if it is her decision to do this, I want it to be hers alone. I listened and accepted that she felt that things were not going to work out between us - I told her that I was not going to give up hope that it would until we were done - and she told me that the fact that I would let her go seemed to her to be the only way she would consider working through things. I know it's strange and a bit backwards, but she is in control of this ship now, and she needs to know this. I, however, have a great deal of work to do on my own. We ended up agreeing that we would be friends again for as long as this lasts both for our son and ourselves. She ended up saying that now it would probably be that much harder to go because of her guilt - isn't that interesting? I feel like what I've finally done is I've given her the respect that I'd taken away when this all started. I respect her, just not her actions - and that line gets very fuzzy when the pain comes into play. I don't want her to feel that she can't come back to me because I don't respect her - so I have to TRULY give her the choice, because it is her life. I just hope that I can maintain this perspective, because I feel like I need to keep justifying things to myself even now. The fact is, however, that I knew there were consequences to my actions, and I have decided to act and accept whatever consequences there are. I know that this action HAS liberated ME from a position I wasn't comfortable being in, even though it may have had its benefits.
“No problem can be solved from the same level of consciousness that created it. ” – Albert Einstein
