Well, y'all...
I have a friend here that has been encouraging me to make some decisions...
I started to push myself to END IT!...
then pulled back and I am working on trusting myself to move at a pace that is right FOR ME.
I did talk to him tonight. He is sad, hopeless, distant, disconnected...
I told him I was getting tired of *not fun* marriage and wanted a relationship of trust and love and joy.
He said I obviously did NOT want those things.
I said I was sorry he felt that way.
I said I was sorry he felt so hurt.
I said that my concerns about him medicating depression with alcohol and not seeing that as a problem, as well as lying to me about it and not seeing that as a problem...
He cut me off and said he already offered to fix my concerns (by saying he'd cut down or quit) and I just am perpetually dissatisfied. That I am judgmental and have already given up on him. That I feel he is never good enough and he won't be in a relationship and be made to explain himself perpetually or be made to feel like a big jerk.
(that stung and made me sad...)
I said I didn't feel that way.
He said he knows I do.
I said I wanted to honor my needs, and also honor that he may not want to be/do what I need. I said I had considered giving up. That I didn't want to, but I'd be willing to if that was what was best for us.
I said I was committed to treating him with respect and that I loved him.
He said that was just rhetoric.
I didn't reply.
I said it just sucks.
He said, "What? That you tore me apart and broke my heart?
Aww, geez.
I said, "You know, I could reply with the same level of righteousness and hurt and defense and explain MY side...but then we'd both just not hear one another...
but don't you think you had ANY responsibility?"
"Oh, yea," he replies, "I'm sure it's all my fault and I'm a big jerk."
"Could there be a middle ground"
He murmurs a fully detached, "sure."
So we gave up tonight on trying to talk.
But, here's the thing...
I am in a surprising place.
I am sad, for sure.
I second guess myself when I talk to him.
A part of me still wants to make him feel better, get him to not blame me, make him understand...
A part of me is resistant to ending my marriage, still...
And yet, I am not bereft. I don't feel abandoned by him. I don't feel lost.
I do feel trepidation about how the future will be (I don't have that worked out)...
and I have concerns he will make things difficult when I say I am done...
but I have excitement and hope about the future possibilities.
I want to treat him honorably and kindly.
I feel...still.
Disinterested in drama.
I keep bringing myself back to: I am growing and it is painful and I have changed the rules on him and it hurts him, and yet, I am making good choices for me and I am okay. I am safe.
I have a friend that got broken up with recently. She was feeling insecure and not good enough and needy and lost and lonely...
and I realized I don't feel much of that at all.
I had another friend that got in a big disagreement with another buddy who ended their friendship. She is feeling abandoned and not good enough and judged and worried that this person is spreading rumors about her and messing up her whole life...
and I don't feel like that.
HOLY COW! What good work I am doing! LOL! Who am I??
I feel a little underwater - like everything is a bit slow motion and surprising. Is this really so? How silly. I love him. He loves me. Can we not communicate? Can we not come to compromise? Can we not trust? Truly?
But I also feel a sense of quiet...
...and observation and...
...allowing...
(maybe not in full, yet, but even that is okay.)
Does that make sense?
Perhaps it is being here. Being so fulfilled in my work and so supported and KNOWING I am more than these challenges.
As my mother says, "Don't forget to hold the challenges in one hand WHILE holding the joy in the other."
It is all true.
I can love him and let go.
I can love him and let go even if he goes down in his sinking ship insisting that I don't love him - perhaps never loved him.
And that will burn and ache inside my heart.
And I can let that be the last word.
And love him still.
It aches. It is so sad. It is such loss. Of hope and possibility and dreams.
And I can make space for that
as I continue to breathe a day at a time and move forward.
Now, don't get me wrong! I don't know how to end it.
I can't seem to find a "good" time to have that conversation.
I want to get it over with and at the same time I feel like I should wait till I get home at the end of September.
I don't have it (in any way) together!!
But I will be okay.
You give me modeling and encouragement and hope.
I am glad to check in.
Peace