Hello,

Anita, thank you for your thoughts.  I don’t think I want him to feel pain, as much as I’m just too tired to care, get angry (I stopped crying and yelling a looooong time ago), and fight for making things work.  I recognize all that my husband has done to provide for our family and I am grateful for that.  It is a big part of the reason I stayed, as I mentioned earlier.  In a selfish way, it made my life easier, even though I was still mostly a single parent (unless it was F-U-N), living with a “partner” who was detached and what I see now as being immature.  I felt I had two options – to stay and make the best of it, or leave and create more problems.

We aren’t the first couple to go through this, or the last.  It’s a common thing, especially when you have kids.  And so while I might have been fighting, I thought I was fighting from a place of hope that things would change.  Change is emerging, and now my anger and resentment are rising to the surface.  I really believe it’s not intentional, but a natural thing.  It’s like the story about the Little Red Hen.  You don’t get to eat the bread if you haven’t helped plant it, grow it, harvest it, bake it.

Christopher – thank you for your response.  What you say here aptly describes where we are now:

“nothing wakes a man’s conscience like letting him be, or giving him space to continue being ignorant while you finally choose to be unbothered”

He has had all the space he wants and needs, the difference is that it doesn’t need to be divided among 4 kids and I am no longer jumping up and down like a lunatic asking for help.   I happily am not bothered by what he does or doesn’t do.  I also have space and it has been liberating.

Where you say this, “i believe marriages are divine unions and are meant to last.”  I agree, but think both parties need to be willing to work out differences, accept mistakes and have the desire to create a life that works for both of them.  My husband is not a bad person, and I am no saint.  We have both made mistakes.  I just don’t know if my husband has the capacity or tools to communicate what he actually wants and needs, and I don’t think he has the capacity to think in terms of what works for “both” of us. That may come with all this space he has now.

Airene