Originally Posted by hurtnohio

TG...coming from you, this is strong advice. Number one because I have grown to really respect and appreciate your perspective. And number two, I joined this forum about the time you and your hubby separated. So I know you don't take advice like this lightly! (Not that the others do, but I hope you know what I mean)

I think I'm slowly circling around to knowing the right decision to make for me. I'm in a highly technical field, and the best analogy I can come up with is that you never give up on a piece of equipment if it's at all possible to save it. However, a prudent purveyor of my particular expertise also knows that there's a time to give up on it and do the best you can to save what's left.

In my case, I've been reluctant to give up on the machine (my marriage) until and unless I'm absolutely convinced it's beyond saving. Then and only then will I make the decision to salvage what I can (my relationship with my son).

Hope that makes sense in some weird sort of way. I guess the rest of you on the board have given up on my "machine" long ago, but it's taken me a while to get there. But unless something spectacular happens in the next month or so - something spectacular along the lines of her voluntarily agreeing to pursue her own counseling and to also make amends for all the smear campaigns she's engaged in with friends and family - I think I know what decision I need to make.

I've often said, this would be so much easier if she were to physically threaten me (she has a gun and knows how to use it!) or to cheat on me. Then my decision would be very clear-cut. But this psychological stuff seems so fuzzy to me. Maybe because I have such a weak sense of boundaries myself.

TG, I just wanted you to know you've got me thinking!