# Am I moving on or going crazy?



## healingme (Aug 21, 2010)

I have been waiting – sometimes patiently, sometimes not so – for H to organise marriage counselling. I moved out 5 ½ months ago. We sold the house and he moved in with our neighbour so that he could save some extra money not having to pay rent or mortgage. He’s been there for over a month now. He wants to move to the area I’m in. It’s the area where we met and first got together. I lived there for many years, so for me it was like going home.
He’s been saying for months now that he’ll organise a counsellor once he’s found an apartment. Meanwhile, the thoughts and feelings I have and the interactions we need to have are swimming around inside my head with no real outlet (I’m in individual counselling, but I need interaction with him to move forward and work out what’s really happening). Those thoughts are now festering, growing, mutating, and all I can liken it to is emotional vomit. It’s all I can think about, feel, imagine - every single moment of the day. I’ve told him many times that we need to start the counselling, and the very last thing I wanted to do was push him. I wanted him to see for himself that we needed it asap and act on it, because one of my biggest issues about our relationship (probably the seed of our breakup) is that he procrastinates on everything, and I am constantly left to wait for him. It’s so frustrating and destructive. I’m learning to be patient, so please don’t think I’m just some pushy cow, but I’m tired of him not starting things; half starting and not finishing. I’ve told him so many times – if you want to procrastinate on your own time, then the only person you affect is you, but when you procrastinate on a shared task, you hold me back with you. How can he evolve as a person and as a man if he doesn’t create his own change in his life? 
Obviously where he lives or when he chooses to bite the bullet and move out on his own is none of my business, but using that as an excuse to put off counselling is every bit my business.
On Sunday I visited an old friend. We have been friends since we were 14, and had a 4-5 year relationship in our early 20s. We are 34 now, so there are 9 years since that relationship ended. We’ve always remained very close friends (and no, please don’t jump to conclusions). We have a soul connection and our relationship was not good for our friendship, so it ended. When I saw him, I was explaining to him what happened with H and how I came to the decision to leave, and at first I found myself trying hard to explain, constantly trying to come up with many ways to describe it because I have been conditioned to struggle that way when talking to H. But my friend said “you don’t need to try so hard. I understand what you mean already”, and it was a really big moment for me because it brought home that I wasn’t just imagining things. H really, truly does not listen to me. He loves me but he doesn’t care about me. And this friend, who knows me so well and who has a long history with me on many levels, just gets me straight away. As I searched for words, he spoke them for me. It was both enlightening, but also frightening because it really brought home that I seem to have married the wrong person. Maybe I married him for his ‘potential’ to be in a great partnership with me, but he has not lived up to that potential, or at least he stopped trying to about 2 years ago.
I am now finding it so very hard to concentrate on anything but this. My work is suffering and by the time I get home at the end of the day I am exhausted and teary. I recognise signs of depression because I have a long history of it. I am starting to withdraw from my world, my family and friends. In fact, the only friend I am in contact with right now is the one I mentioned. I am so very confused, because I have not had any real physical contact for a long time. I don’t mean sexually, but just physical intimacy, like you have with someone you know well. A month ago I kissed a couple of strangers, and also had a nice moment with someone my friend was trying to match me up with, but I told him he was a nice person and I was in such a weird place that I would only drag him into it with me and it was unfair on him. All sounds simple enough, but it really did do my head in to cuddle with someone who wasn’t H. I like kissing – always have – and I got to the point with H that I didn’t want to kiss him because behind it there was resentment, even loathing. So it was nice to kiss someone again, even if they weren’t very good. I think I’m a bit like Dawn French in that way. But when I saw my friend, I was almost overwhelmed by the urge to kiss him. I didn’t of course, because it would bring too many things up, but just to have that level of physical closeness with someone with whom I have such a high level of emotional and intellectual closeness as well is extremely hard to resist. I do not want to get anyone caught in my web of confusion, especially someone I care for so deeply.
I am on my own, drifting further and further out to sea. The longer I go without seeing a counsellor with H, the further away from him I drift. I am scared because I don’t know what the future holds. Will I continue to drift in solitude? Will H surprise me and begin to evolve? If he does, is there too much damage already done for us to salvage anything that will keep us together? There is nothing but emptiness around me, and life holds so many questions without answers, or even hints.


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## Crankshaw (Jan 12, 2011)

> I recognise signs of depression


Then deal with that first, if that means medication, so be it, but until you can fix that problem nothing else will get fixed.

yeah, I'm on anti depressants, sleeping pills blah blah blah, but people around me have noticed a huge improvement in my attitude and ability to cope with things.

good luck


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## healingme (Aug 21, 2010)

Depression is something I've dealt with for as long as I can remember. I'm not saying it's fine, or normal, but I can recognise the signs and somehow manage to get by. There's no way I'll take medication to fix it. Part of the reason I left H in the first place was to bring my frustration level down and try to get some kind of mental and emotional balance. 
I'm really upset because I feel like I want to move on, but can't for some reason.


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## DjF (Nov 24, 2010)

healingme...managing to get by and living life are 2 different things...moving on may not hapen until you deal with the depression...

work on the depression, arrange for couples counseling yourself, push the issue, take control...not doing either just makes you a sef-enabler...move forward!


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## Crankshaw (Jan 12, 2011)

healingme said:


> Depression is something I've dealt with for as long as I can remember. I'm not saying it's fine, or normal, but I can recognise the signs and somehow manage to get by.


getting by is not fine.



> There's no way I'll take medication to fix it.


yeah, I was the same, till I broke. Now I am a much better person, and getting better every day. My sister is taking meds as well, she use to be a bit*h, she is now a brilliant person.
Depression is a chemical imbalance in the brain, 'getting by' does not address the medical issue.


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