Guess who can't sleep and it rehashing the same ol'same ol' thing over and over again. I haven't posted much lately but haven't had much to offer either. Thought since I wrote the following letter but H will never see it, I would post it here so others could see where I am in my divorce grieving/healing process. Thanks & God Bless. PP<p>H,<p>Don&#8217;t know why I&#8217;m doing this because it hasn&#8217;t helped in the past. However, I think you need to know where I&#8217;m coming from these days. As time goes on and you get more and more comfortable and stable in your new life with "OW" and "OW KID", I have to stop and think about how this affects me.<p>First of all, I&#8217;ve given up. I absolutely quit. I am not responsible for your happiness or the decisions you make in your life. You are. All I can do is either be supportive of you as my husband or learn to accept things the way they are. Since it is impossible for me to accept your affair, rejection and abandonment in a positive way, my only option is to accept things the way they are, do what I can to stop the pain and move on.<p>I may have to accept that these are the decisions you have made but I do not have to accept them as influences in my life. I am learning to stand on my own. To love myself. Not because I&#8217;m your wife or the kid&#8217;s Mom but because I love myself. My happiness has to come from within. I&#8217;m not there yet but I have made progress. I know that I can make it without you in my life. I know that I can be a successful businesswoman, take care of my household and raise my children. How do I know this? The pure Grace of God. With God, I can do all things. If you don&#8217;t believe me, look it up. Philippians 4:10-13. &#8216;Nuff said.<p>For 10 months I&#8217;ve tried desperately to hold onto you and to do anything I could to bring us closer. As time moves on and our divorce becomes closer, I have an increasing need to separate myself from you. I do not understand why it is that you want to be in my life on a daily basis. I&#8217;ve explained over and over again that it hurts me to see you every day. I&#8217;ve begged for your cooperation, tried to avoid you, acted very hateful and ugly towards you, broke down and cried around you, etc. I don&#8217;t know what it is going to take to get you out of my life. You are my children&#8217;s father but you are no longer my husband. For 11 months now, longer I expect, you&#8217;ve been with OW and your desire is to be her partner not mine. No matter how much you claim confusion, your actions are very clear and have been from day one. You have no intention of being with me. Sure you want me to be there for you when you need me but I just can&#8217;t anymore. I am a giving person but I&#8217;ve given all I have to give. I have nothing left. I have no love left. I only feel rejection and anger now. I don&#8217;t like being lied to, even if you think you are doing it to protect my feelings. Quite simply and not eloquently&#8230;. It sucks!!<p>I&#8217;ve done what I can to remain your friend. I&#8217;ve tried to rationalize what you are doing, I&#8217;ve made thousands of excuses for your behavior, I&#8217;ve defended you to my parents and yours even though I was wrong to trust you. I&#8217;ve allowed you to come into my house on a daily basis, even though you made the choice to leave. I offered forgiveness and a safe place to come home to&#8230;. No this is not the "me" show. It doesn&#8217;t matter what I&#8217;ve done. It only matters what I do from this point on. I don&#8217;t owe you an explanation but just to prevent any confusion, I&#8217;m offering one. We will be divorced within the next couple of months. DIVORCED. The word doesn&#8217;t mean best friends, constant companions, lovers, buddies, etc.. It means that what God put together, man has torn apart. We broke our vows to each other. Yes I said WE. You know I&#8217;ve never tried to say you were totally at fault and I have acknowledged my part in our growing apart. However, I was willing to fight for our marriage and you weren&#8217;t. I couldn&#8217;t make you want to when you first moved out and I can&#8217;t make you want to now. I simply need to move on. I want to be with someone who wants to be with me. I&#8217;m not ready right now for another emotional relationship but I do have needs and one of those is for companionship. I have to break away from my hope in our marriage. There just is no hope left anymore. It is not my intention to hurt you by saying this. I hope that you understand why I have to protect my own heart and break free from you. I will always care for you but quite frankly, I don&#8217;t have love left to give. It scares me when I hear the words &#8220; I don&#8217;t love him anymore&#8221;. BUT the truth is the truth. Love takes work. Love is patient and kind and Love also should always trust and should never fail. Our love failed or if not our love, at least the manifestation of it, our marriage, did. Things will die if not watered and tended to. We failed to nurture our love and it died. I can&#8217;t make you love me. I don&#8217;t want you to love me because you have no other choice. I don&#8217;t want to be 2nd to another woman or another lifestyle. I can&#8217;t change you. I don&#8217;t want to. An ex-boyfriend of mine from high school once told me that I always had a way of making him seem more than what he was. I don&#8217;t buy into that theory personally. I loved you for who you were, not who I wanted you to be. All I asked was for you to love me in return but I have to learn to accept that that isn&#8217;t going to happen. I have to move on.<p>In order for me to do that I must start living as if we are divorced. We cannot be best friends, I cannot depend on you for help with my household, I cannot expect you to ever come home, and I cannot love you anymore. To accomplish these things, first I must let you know that you are no longer welcome in my home. At some point in the future, I may be more comfortable but for right now, you and I have no business to do together. I am capable of taking the kids to school and do not need your assistance daily. I understand that my continuing to allow you to essentially make yourself at home each morning has been misleading. As you know, I&#8217;ve tried on several other occasions to get you to cooperate with my wishes to stay away or at least outside. Each time, I back down and do not stick to what I&#8217;ve planned. <p> This time is different. It really is too late for us. I no longer feel like I have to maintain a safe place for you to come home to. I do not want you to come home any longer. This is no longer your home. It is my home. You have made a decision about where you want to be and I have accepted it. There is no need for me to open my home to you on a daily basis. There is no reason for you to be in my life on a daily basis. Previously I had been hanging onto every second I could get with you. Now I am finding that I don&#8217;t like the person I am when you are around. You make me nervous and self-conscious. I should not feel this way in my own home. You made the decision to shut me out of your life so I&#8217;m not making the decision to shut the door back home that I&#8217;ve left open with the light on for the past 11 months.<p>This is very hard. This decision did not come overnight. It is not based on the way I feel one day. This decision has been in the making for 11 months now. I think it is time we live separate lives. I&#8217;m not sure I even know how to because I have depended on you for so long. But guess what, ex-wives do not and should not depend on their ex-husbands for anything other than the children. Where our kids are concerned we need to have discussions and make sure that they are happy, healthy and well adjusted. Everything else simply is either my business or your business. There is no &#8220;our business&#8221; anymore.<p>I know this sounds cruel but it has been a long time coming and it must be said to avoid any further deterioration of our relationship. For the kid&#8217;s sake, we need to get along. For my sake, I need to get along without you in my life on a daily basis. Please try to understand that I am not purposely trying to hurt you. I am just giving you what you want which is a new life, not married to me while reclaiming my life and giving myself an opportunity to move on.<p>"me"

PP
I just wanted you to know that I read your letter. It is sad that this is eventually what divorce means... Yesterday was XH birthday, I sent an sms and he replied with Thx. Thats all. I had spent every birthday with him since he turned 21 and yesterday he was 30. It is sad, but I no longer love him or want him back, and it is sad that I'm ready to move on with my life. It is sad that he told me the other day he is coming up to see his parents in March and would like to collect his post etc, and I said no, I would take it to his mother's house as I did not want to see him. I didn't say that to be malicious but because I really don't want to be faced with the pain of seeing him again and it opening wounds that are starting to heal. He retaliated 'well good! what can say [img]images/icons/tongue.gif" border="0[/img] <p>Anyway good luck with your decision to keep him at bay....<p>Pantha

Pantha.<p>Thanks for responding. I didn't expect much support on this subject as I have rehashed it multiple times and not really followed much of the excellent advice I recieved. I just wasn't ready before. Now I am. I don't like the tone of the letter so he will never see it. It definately isn't the MB way although there are some threads of Plan B in there. I didn't post it to discourage anymore from continuing to work on their marriage. It was just something that poured out of me. Pure and honest emotion and I agree it is very sad. I didn't like myself much when I was the desparate soul willing to do anything to keep my man and I don't like myself much now that I've turned away from any hope of restoring my marriage.<p>I am truly trying to learn to be content in all situations but I've been a bit lonely lately and wanted to share what I was feeling with others who could understand. <p>Thanks again. PP

PP,
I loved your letter! I don't know what you didn't like about the tone, but I thought it was absolutely great. It is very honest and forthright, but not judgemental and not mean-spirited at all. I think it shows great courage and strength and if it were me, I would give it to him.<p>You are simply saying that he has made his choices and now you must make some. There is nothing "non-MB" about that. Moving on with your life and releasing control is sometimes the greatest gift we can give ourselves.<p>I say congrats to you on reaching this important milestone. You probably don't, but you should feel very proud of yourself. You are made of strong stock girl!

Dear peoplepleaser,<p> That was a very powerful letter, from the heart and sincere. I encourage you to give it to him, it might help you stick with the boundary that you have set if he is truly and fully aware of your decision. Good luck.

ppl,
I could write a similar letter. Instead of an OW, however, my H's issue is a need for mental health counselling which he chooses to ignore. The result seems largely the same... we must accept them as they are, and do what we can to stop the pain. It's truly sad when we must protect ourselves FROM our spouse when that spouse should be our safe harbor in this world. <p>I trust you've read Boundaries by Townsend and Cloud? When the time comes for you to say or send your message to H, I'd suggest fine tuning your boundaries. I saw the focus shifting from you to him several times in the letter. As for having no love for him, well, don't you think it's a supply that replenishes with time? I know my H has drained every last drop of patience I possess on many occasions. After a bit of time, a new supply miraculously appears. Don't worry about his hurt feelings. If you take action to protect yourself and it results in his feelings being hurt, well, that would just be a natural consequence of HIS actions. Don't waste a single brain cell worrying about that!

At a certain point we must realize the damage we are doing to ourselves by hanging on to nothing. I think you have hit your limit, and made your decision. There is nothing to apologize about, you should feel proud of yourself. This is the beginning of a new life for you.<p>Elizabeth

Thanks for the support. I didn't expect such as positive response. <p>Haven't given to him yet. May not now.... Timing is poor... (so is he, continue reading)<p>I don't feel sorry for him but due to trying to hide his 401K money from me, he failed to do the right thing when he changed jobs and now owes $7000 in taxes to the IRS. <p>Who says divorce isn't expensive? His infidelity and rejection hit me hard in the heart where it hurt me the most. He's being hit where it hurts him the most, his wallet.<p>What goes around definately comes around, one way or another. Especially when you lie. I doubt he will ever see it, but I've learned a huge lesson myself.<p>Have a great day everyone!<p>PP

<small>[ August 08, 2004, 11:09 PM: Message edited by: laura_lee ]</small>

Laura, you are so right and pp, I have to agree with her. I wrote a long (6 pages!) letter to my husband, pouring out my heart and soul. He read it and all he could see was digs at him and me blaming him for everything. I truly regret sending it now and have made a pact with myself to never send another.

Lynn,<p>You know, I could have written most of that letter, but not as well as you did. I thought it was a wonderful letter, and I did not see anything anti-MB in there. I think it is a great letter, one that should go out AFTER the Plan B letter, anyway. Which I know you have already written and sent.<p>The strength and courage you possess is in every word. If I were you, I would send it, because it quite clearly lets him know that he has lost you. Whether or not he cares about that, he needs to know you are moving ahead now, for real, without him. I believe WS's think in some way that they have lost BS's, but that there is always a chance to go back one day, if the fantasy life doesn't work out. I believe in giving them a big dose of reality after trying a great Plan A and B. You have done that, and now you have run out of steam for the fight, as I have, so I know how you feel. <p>Send that letter. It clearly states he has lost you. It clearly states you will not tolerate this one second longer, and that you are moving ahead. And it clearly states that you have claimed your life back, and that you like that idea.<p>And at this point, does it matter if it is going to hurt his feelings? He did make his bed 11 months ago...now he has to lie in it.<p>Love you girl,<p>Jacky