My X and I have been apart now for about 4 months. She is very angry at me for the way I treated her on alot of occasions and when we separated she never said "This is forever" she told me everytime we talked that "I am just not happy with you right now"... She always through that "right now" in... I have completely changed since our separation and have learned more then I ever expected from our separation. I was afraid to love and DEEPLY hurt from my past relationship before my X and had refused to open myself up to anyone before it was possibly too late. My X is carying my child right now and is at about 6 months. I have been sending her cards, flowers, small gifts, and bought her a gift certificate to a spa for a manicure, facial, and pedicure and just tonight I delivered a special gift to her that i made. I went to walmart and bought a pack of colored index cards and on 35 of those index cards I wrote a memory we shared together on each one. I then got a long piece of pink string and punched holes in the cards to hang them from the string. By the way i cut each index card into the shape of a heart and decorated each heart with small stickers of hearts. I ended up drapping it on the banaster of her front porch.. I dropped it off at her house tonight at around 1:00am because i wanted to make sure she was in bed so I could suprise her and she wasnt home. I have been to her house about 3 times all being late at night and she is never home. This is making me curious because our mutual friend is telling me that she is just working all day and then going home and going straight to bed because she is tired from the pregnancy. For some reason I dont think im getting the whole story. She refuses to talk to me and has not given me any information about our child and I had made it very clear that I would like to go to the doctors appointments or help name the child or even be able to see my own child be born. She refuses to talk to me though. I have been telling myself for the last four months that I refuse to give up on my X because I have relized that I love her more then anything else in this world but sometimes I feel like i should just move on with my life and when the baby's born do what i have to to get visitation rights or joint custody of our child. I am starting to feel like I should stop fighting because its HARD!!!!!!!!!!! I am content with my daily life but dont feel complete. When is it time to give up? How do you know when its time to give up? Please someone give me there advice..... I need to know what she is doing with her life these days and would like the chance to just talk with her about the baby or us or just find out whats going on with the pregnancy... I need to know what to do...... Do i just give up on the most wonderful person in the world or do i fight for years????????

You are raising a lot of issues here (for instance, the intensity of your pursuit of her (which may be driving her farther away); the pregnancy/custody issues; your suspicions of infidelity; the unhealthy neediness in not feeling "complete" without her) that are beyond my meager ability to deal with, but I'm sure you'll get a lot of help from the more experienced people here.<p>But I want to pass on this piece of advice in response to your direct question- how do you know when it's time to give up? I've had several divorced people tell me you'll know when you know. No one can give you a formula to follow. A small, quiet voice will enter your head and say "Done." You likely won't storm out of the house yelling "I want a divorce" or "What do you want from me?" You'll sit down on the sofa and say to yourself "That's all."<p>I'm sorry it can't be more specific than that- I'd guess just about everyone who reads this board has asked him/herself the same question, and all of us wish someone could answer it for us. The fact is, no one can. You will have to answer it for yourself.

OK, first, I think it's worth pointing out that dabigtrain raised the exact same concerns that occurred to me as I read your post. If you haven't read through Harley's material on this website, you would be well-advised to do so.<p>All I'm going to try to address here, though, is your basic question: "How to know when its time to give up?"<p>I don't think it's ever "time" to give up. Time has nothing to do with it.<p>There is a price for hanging on to hope, and there is a price for letting go of hope. You must choose which price you wish to pay.<p>The choice might be easier if you knew what those prices were. And unfortunately you probably don't have much of an idea yet.<p>Right now you are still hanging on to hope. Other pains are mixed in with the pain of your hope, which makes it difficult for you to assess just what the price for that hope really is. And you can only guess at what the price for giving it up might be. (I think you would find that you must give up other pieces of yourself along with your hope in order to get rid of it, and I cannot know what value those parts might have to you.)<p>I'm sorry if this sounds bleak, but one of the first steps to both happiness and wisdom is the acceptance of what IS.<p>Acceptance of reality frees us to do what is RIGHT.

<p>[ January 20, 2002: Message edited by: MMMMM ]</p>