Dear Luke:

I will summarize what you shared so far: you are 31, been in a relationship with your now estranged wife since you were about 23 and married since you were 26. Six  months ago your parents’ marital issues worsened, and a month later, your wife ended the relationship with you, stating that she is a lesbian and that is the reason. She moved out of the home you shared the morning after breaking up with you.

When the two  of you met, eight years ago, she was “very confident with people and was quite promiscuous and had some drinking issues” and you felt inadequate, not confident and not enough. After the separation, she is focusing on her photography business and “dating people and sleeping with women”, while you “can’t even imagine dating or sleeping with someone new”. You feel inadequate, not confident and not enough (“I don’t feel normal or enough”), that “a lot of me was just our relationship” and now, a lot of you is no longer there.

You have managed to continue your employment since, but “have been a wreck ever since”, taking antidepressants and being in therapy. You feel that you are losing “the most crucial parts” of your life, you feel abandoned, “pretty trashed”, and confused: “did I even know her?”, you wrote.

In your marriage, “She always had plenty to say about (your) flaws… chastising me for being negative about a situation ahead of time, or my not being confident enough to sing or dance like she would… for worrying about the future or assuming that something would go wrong”.

She, on the other hand, had “a care free attitude.. drinking too much so she could have fun but having me to take care of her”. Yet, this relationship “was as close to perfect as I had known so far”, way better than the marriages of your parents and hers, having been “fighting and screaming matches”.

My thoughts: your wife coming out as a lesbian is only a part of her. The more significant part of her is that “care free attitude” you mentioned. This attitude is most likely to continue no matter her sexual practice and life circumstances (excluding extreme circumstances, I imagine).

Her attitude does not support a monogamous relationship with man or woman. It does not support a stable through-thin-and-thick relationship with either man or woman. If a relationship becomes uncomfortable and she has a better option- she is gone. Just like she was gone the morning after breaking up with you (she was able to move out the day after because she had the option prepared in advance).

You asked no  one in particular: “did I ever know her?”- I am guessing not, you didn’t really know her. In your desperation for a stable, safe relationship (one you did not experience at  home, with your parents), you imagined her to be someone different than who she really was. It is like a man lost in the desert imagining he sees water, then approaching the water.. finds out it was never there, it was an illusion.

All that worry and stress you grew  up with, at your parents’ home, stress and worry which continued when you were married (the marriage was not that safe for you after all- you kept worrying), never prepared you for anything. Instead,  it clouded your vision and you were not able to see who was this woman you married.

She may come back to you if her life circumstances get difficult, if she needs again someone to “take care of her”. But better Luke takes care of himself. She was never your Answer, the Solution, that part that was missing in your life, as you put it.

The part that was and is missing is not her, it is you- it is within you and you can find it and experience the peace of mind you needed for so long.

anita