Dear Jen:

in the past 1 1/2 years I have once in a while seen your posts. Tonight I just want to reach out to you and share some of my thoughts with you. I hope that you will be able to find some peace in this turmoil of your emotions.

You and your H are in a dance of co-dependency. You move away, he comes to chase after you. You come closer, he lets you drop. You both are drawn to each other, but at the same time every one of you knows that there is no good outcome. There are incredible heights of love (although not so much recently) followed by fights and drama. This is a destructive unhealthy relationship. Love for the other person commands respect and caring. Not just picking up the phone and calling at all hours. Your H is desperately trying to keep you in the dependent position. True, he does not want to loose you, NOW. Has he had a million chances to fight for you before...sure. Maybe he is getting it now...maybe not.

You will only be able to answer this question for yourself, when you have given him another chance and he has moved away from you another time again.

I have lived in a ten year relationship like that before I met my H. I loved my former BF so much, but we were destructive for each other. I moved to another country. I was the one who ended the relationship because I had grown to see that I wanted other things in life. I had to get away from the co-dependency to be free.

There are a lot of parallels that I see between you and me. It takes great courage to make that step away from a person who is so important for you. But Jen, you have written about your feelings for your H...that you see him as manipulative and that he has changed. This has been going on for a long time.

Try to calm yourself, Jen, and try to find your true feelings among the fog.

I needed to move across an ocean for a whole year to be able to walk away from what I thought was the love of my life. You need distance, too, because only when you take a step back and look at the whole picture...you can be objective.

Please know that I feel for you...all the best to you, Jen.

Turn off the damn phone. If he keeps calling, turn the ringer off so you can't hear. If he keeps leaving messages, turn the message machine off. Stop talking to him. It's driving you nuts.

Iceprincess, thanks so much for your post, and for sharing your thoughts and past experiences. You're right, when I take a step back, I see how unhealthy it all is, and see getting out of the crazy cycle of what is perhaps "co-dependency" (something maybe I should learn more about). I'm a lot calmer now, just exhausted.

Time 4 bed,

Jen