# She filed...



## turtle1214 (Oct 11, 2017)

I've posted on here a few times about this, but here are the basics:
H: 32
W: 28
Met: 01/02/15
Engaged: 10/25/15
Married: 03/25/17
Bomb and Separated: 09/09/17
Divorce filed: Last week (10/16-10/20)

I made most of the typical mistakes that the LBS makes except begging. I never begged her to come back to me. I wrote letters, some I sent and some I didn't, texted and called, contacted her friends, and so on. That first two weeks was the most painful part of my life. Then I found this site and Husband Help Haven. Both helped me gain perspective on what I can control. I've been on the right path to recovery since then. Eating right, exercising, reconnecting with old friends and making new ones, started going to church for the first time in my life. I'm doing things I've never done before, things I never thought I'd do like joining a class at the gym, talking to random people in the coffee shop I go to, making an effort to be social, and going to church. I never would have thought about doing these things if she hadn't come into my life. Probably wouldn't be doing them if she hadn't left. Unless she told me or I realized how unhappy she had become. Here are some of the things I've been thinking over the last couple weeks leading up to her eventually filing for divorce. I knew it was coming, didn't make it hurt any less when she told me she filed.

On 09/09, she told me that she doesn't love me anymore. That she hasn't been happy in the marriage for a long time. She definitely has a good reason for not being happy. After going to church for about a month now, I realized that we have not loved each other like God intended a husband and wife to love each other, unconditionally. From the time we met until we were engaged, all we had to focus on was us. We found our happiness in making each other happy. That's all there was to it. We got in fights, of course, but we always resolved them through our love for each other. That changed after we got engaged. Once that happened, we stopped focusing on us first. We stopped finding our happiness in each other. Instead, we found our happiness in planning the wedding, getting an apartment together, adopting a dog, getting married, buying a house, then adopting another dog. Finding our happiness in all of these big life moments left precious little time for us to find happiness in each other. That was our downfall. We moved in to her parents new house after living in our apartment for a year in order to help save money for the wedding and house. That was when we really stopped focusing on each other. That was when the acts of affection became few and far between. We started holding back affection when we were angry with each other, which was when we needed to show each other even more love. We had the wedding and house to distract us for a while, but once everything settled down, that's when it became too much for her. Once all the big life changes were done and all that was left was an empty well that used to be so full of love, that's when she decided she wanted out. I can't really blame her.

People have responded to my previous posts saying there's probably someone else. That may be true, but in my heart I don't believe it is. I don't need that "tough love" lesson so if you're planning on posting such a reply, don't bother.

Falling out of love happens. Love is a feeling, and one that we can't control. You either fall in love with someone or you don't. You don't have a choice. You just hope and pray that when you fall in love with someone, they fall in love with you, too. That's what happened with us. And once that happens, it stays with you forever. You never completely lose the love you have for someone. I know that in both of us, there will be a place in our hearts that only belongs to the other. Even when we move on and find new loves and those loves make it to forever, we will still love each other. Even the most successful marriages that make it "til death do us part" experience ebbs and flows. My work grandpa (we should all be so fortunate to have one of those!) once said that he told his wife on their 30th anniversary that it only felt like they'd been married for 5 years because they only had 5 good years. That's what unconditional love is. It's love that is greater than pain, anger, and pride. If you feel like you're falling out of love, it means that something needs to be adjusted. It means it's time to put some serious work into the marriage. Get counseling if needed. There's nothing that love can't overcome if two people are committed to each other. Which brings me to another point.

She said she was unhappy. While you don't get to chose who you fall in love with, you do get to choose your happiness. After she left, she made the choice to be happy outside the marriage. She had to. She had to make sure she was happy outside the marriage because if she wasn't, then she just made one of the biggest mistakes of her life. So of course she is going to be happy. She is doing everything she can to be happy. If she wanted to, she could choose to be happy with me. It would take a lot of work, but I'm willing to bet it would take a lot less work than starting over (again, no comments about an affair, I don't need to hear it).

So filing a divorce on the grounds of irreconcilable differences is bulls**t. All marriages, in fact all relationships in general, have irreconcilable differences. It's ironic that it's an acceptable reason for divorce when the differences between two people are almost always what attracts them to each other in the first place. Short of abuse, there is no good reason to get a divorce. Just one or two people who don't want to try. Even infidelity and addiction can be overcome if both people choose to make a marriage work. It would be even more difficult, but it would be possible.

And that's what hurts the most. She is making a choice. She thinks it's impossible for her to feel the love for me like she once did, but it's a choice she's making to not allow herself to feel that love. She is choosing to be happier divorced than married to me.

It took losing her, losing everything (had to sell the house), to learn the lesson of what God intends for a marriage. I'm going to be a better man and husband than the one that played his part in his broken marriage. I will be better for myself and for the next love that God puts in my path. I have made it a point to thank God often for bringing my wife into my life. For helping me find the love of my life, my best friend, and my heart's companion. I also thank Him for showing me what it means to love someone unconditionally as He intended. I don't know if I would have learned those lessons without feeling the pain of losing my love.

I wish she would make the choice to be happy with me. To dig deep and find the love that's in her heart buried by layers of pain and resentment. But she doesn't want to. She's too damn stubborn (something we have in common). I pray for the strength to let her go and for her to find the happiness she's looking for.


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## Evinrude58 (Jun 16, 2014)

You're in tremendous pain (it WILL lessen eventually), and taking this whole thing on yourself. 
A year or do from now you won't feel that way about it.

She doesn't love you and can't love you again. The fact that she can't love you now is not her fault. She can't choose to be in love with you again. She likely wouldn't even if she badly wanted to.

Accept it, but don't take all the blame. You're not being fair to yourself.


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## arbitrator (Feb 13, 2012)

* @turtle1214 ~

Sorry to see you in this dilemma and here at TAM, but “irreconcilable differences” is not listed by any Christian church as suitable grounds for divorce! That now is her cross to bear until such time that she humbly confronts the Heavenly Father!

I feel your pain, and will ardently pray for your ultimate recovery! But although it is painful, you will ultimately recover and will find a woman waiting out there who will truly love you for who you are!*


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## ReachingMyPotential (Oct 12, 2017)

Your story is very sad but moving.....feels very similar to my story that I shared on this site two weeks ago. Do you think she might be able to come around in a year or two after you've both had a chance to be apart? Or is she done and done with this stage in her life in the hopes she'll find someone she thinks/chooses to be better for herself? 

If you somehow put in the work into yourself now, would that make a difference to her down the road if you two once shared true love? I think that's what I don't understand about love and marriage which you alluded to in your post. Does true love ever really die? Or do people choose to bury it under layers of pain in order to move on and find something that feels better? You and I are both 32...my wife is 32 and yours is 28....all four of us have the time to move on and make new lives for ourselves, but will these lives be better than the ones we can create now if we actively put in the effort and choose to love? I don't know.


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## Osito79 (Oct 22, 2017)

Everything you are saying sounds like me and what I am going thru. In my case a friend/coworker was telling her to leave me and had an affair with this person who is a women. I hope in your case she didn't go the route of an affair cus it hurts a lot. Good luck to you and will pray for you.


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## Steve1000 (Nov 25, 2013)

arbitrator said:


> * @turtle1214 ~
> 
> Sorry to see you in this dilemma and here at TAM, but “irreconcilable differences” is not listed by any Christian church as suitable grounds for divorce! That now is her cross to bear until such time that she humbly confronts the Heavenly Father!
> 
> I feel your pain, and will ardently pray for your ultimate recovery! But although it is painful, you will ultimately recover and will find a woman waiting out there who will truly love you for who you are!*


But would you really want your spouse to stay with you because they feel obligated due to their religious beliefs?


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## ReachingMyPotential (Oct 12, 2017)

Steve1000 said:


> But would you really want your spouse to stay with you because they feel obligated due to their religious beliefs?


I agree with this. My situation is almost the exact same as the OP. (my thread is somewhere below). Ultimately, I want someone (ideally my current wife) to be with me because she wants to be with me and I'm an incredible husband. That's the main learning point I'm taking in specific regards to a future relationship. Obviously, my main focus right now is working on myself and slowly becoming the man I want to be for myself and 21 month old son....but I do hope one day I'll be in a permanent healthy mental and emotional state where I can open my heart up to someone new and be her true partner.

That's the hope......but still hard to let go of my wife. She had a dream this past weekend of me being an a** hole. I fear her anger towards me will never go away.


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## turtle1214 (Oct 11, 2017)

I asked her if she would ever want to love me again and she said "I don't know". She had even made a comment that when she comes back from the Mayo Clinic, she might think "what the f*** did I just do". At this point, I'm completely letting go. What happens a year or two from now is irrelevant to what I have to do now and I have no idea what she's thinking now let alone that long away. I suppose anything is possible, but I'm not going to hang on to that hope. Doing so, I might miss the chance to be with someone new and feel truly loved again.

I'm of the belief that love never dies. I still love my first love from high school. I haven't talked to her in years, but we're Facebook friends and I see how she's grown into an amazing wife and mother and I couldn't be happier for her. The same will happen here. I'm not the type to be bitter and hold a grudge. Ultimately, I want my STBXW to be happy. I love her too much to want her to feel the pain of our marriage any more.

I'm also of the mind that your life is what you make it. You can be happy if you choose to be. Like I said, my ex is choosing to make herself happy outside the marriage because she has to be right about her choice to leave. She could make the same choice to be happy with me, too. To say she doesn't love me anymore is fair, but to say that it's impossible for her to love me again is naive. That's not how love works. Love grows when you nourish it and dies when you let it starve. We were putting our love into the wedding, the house, the dogs, everything except ourselves. We starved our love for each other and it died. If we both chose to, we could nourish it back to life to be even stronger than before. But we both would have to chose to want that.

We'll both figure out who we are without each other now. We'll probably both find someone new because we are both strong, confident, independent, attractive people (if I do say so myself!) and it won't be long before we're both wrapped up in someone else's arms. Maybe we'll figure out that we were meant for each other all along, or maybe we'll realize we were never marriage material for each other, but make for really good friends, or maybe we never see or speak to each other again. All what-ifs that won't be answered without a lot of time.

You gotta focus on you, because that's the only thing you can control. Gotta make yourself be happy, even if you gotta "fake it til you make it".


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## ReachingMyPotential (Oct 12, 2017)

turtle1214 said:


> I asked her if she would ever want to love me again and she said "I don't know". She had even made a comment that when she comes back from the Mayo Clinic, she might think "what the f*** did I just do". At this point, I'm completely letting go. What happens a year or two from now is irrelevant to what I have to do now and I have no idea what she's thinking now let alone that long away. I suppose anything is possible, but I'm not going to hang on to that hope. Doing so, I might miss the chance to be with someone new and feel truly loved again.
> 
> I'm of the belief that love never dies. I still love my first love from high school. I haven't talked to her in years, but we're Facebook friends and I see how she's grown into an amazing wife and mother and I couldn't be happier for her. The same will happen here. I'm not the type to be bitter and hold a grudge. Ultimately, I want my STBXW to be happy. I love her too much to want her to feel the pain of our marriage any more.
> 
> ...


Man.....your words are exactly what I keep trying to tell myself to move on with my own situation. We haven't even filed yet, won't sell our house until February, and will have a mandatory 6 month waiting period after we file....so it's hard for me to have complete peace with my situation the way you do in order to move on. Part of me refuses to let go and believes I can somehow turn this around regardless of how dead set she is on moving on (no longer wears her rings, has told everyone who will listen that she's getting divorced, did her hair just a little too nice for a NFL game yesterday, is beyond cold/hot/angry towards me, etc.) 

It seems like you have completely let go, have worked on yourself to be the best man you can be, and are working towards opening yourself up for a much better, more fulfilling partnership with someone regardless of who they are. 

It's just so hard to know that your life is about to completely change in so many significant ways. My wife and I share a toddler son so that further complicates i'm able to make peace with this situation. But your words and apparent state of serenity are very inspiring. I hope to one day have the wisdom and courage that you clearly have right now.


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## arbitrator (Feb 13, 2012)

Steve1000 said:


> But would you really want your spouse to stay with you because they feel obligated due to their religious beliefs?


*Let’s just say that if my spouse does not want to stay with me for any reason under the sun, either legitimate or illegitimate, I absolutely do not want to be anywhere in their proximity!*


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## Steve1000 (Nov 25, 2013)

ReachingMyPotential said:


> I agree with this. My situation is almost the exact same as the OP. (my thread is somewhere below). Ultimately, I want someone (ideally my current wife) to be with me because she wants to be with me and I'm an incredible husband. That's the main learning point I'm taking in specific regards to a future relationship. Obviously, my main focus right now is working on myself and slowly becoming the man I want to be for myself and 21 month old son....but I do hope one day I'll be in a permanent healthy mental and emotional state where I can open my heart up to someone new and be her true partner.
> 
> That's the hope......but still hard to let go of my wife. She had a dream this past weekend of me being an a** hole. I fear her anger towards me will never go away.


I read your thread and it does appear that you've come a long way. If your wife does completely move out of the house, I hope you can still maintain your new positive perspective.


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## ReachingMyPotential (Oct 12, 2017)

Steve1000 said:


> I read your thread and it does appear that you've come a long way. If your wife does completely move out of the house, I hope you can still maintain your new positive perspective.


I appreciate that. It's the hardest thing I've ever had to do living with my wife after she dropped this bomb....living with someone who is a cold shell of her former self. Part of me wants this to be over so I can move on and move into a new apartment and start my life anew (Not going to lie....I've fantasized about how I can decorate and furnish my own place)...and part of me wants to hold onto the pain because it's a big piece of what I have left of her (in addition to our 14 year history [we're only 32] and our son) . And a little part of me feels that she'll come back someday once she lets go of her anger and learns to trust me....assuming I make the permanent changes I need to make. And the smart part of my brain tells me to let go of this hope and focus on moving forward. Lotta conflict in my body!

The ultimate goal for every man in my situation (including the OP) is to make peace with the past and learn from our mistakes. That process will yield true growth that will enable us to become the men we always envisioned ourselves to be when we fantasized about the best versions of ourselves. I'm actually kind of excited to see what I can do and who i can meet when this process is over and I'm free to explore the world as this uninhibited version of my true, kind self. I know my wife feels the same about herself too. I just wish we could do this together.


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## Steve1000 (Nov 25, 2013)

ReachingMyPotential said:


> I appreciate that. It's the hardest thing I've ever had to do living with my wife after she dropped this bomb....living with someone who is a cold shell of her former self. Part of me wants this to be over so I can move on and move into a new apartment and start my life anew ...........................
> I'm actually kind of excited to see what I can do and who i can meet when this process is over and I'm free to explore the world as this uninhibited version of my true, kind self. I know my wife feels the same about herself too. I just wish we could do this together.


Aside from being sentenced to life at a maximum security prison, living in the same house, but separately from your wife while knowing that she is planning to leave in a few months would be painfully difficult and stressful. The positive part is that you are making much better decisions than most people who have been in your situation. By trying to understand why your wife is planning to leave is better not only for your wife, but also for yourself and your future relationship with her.


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## Tatsuhiko (Jun 21, 2016)

I didn't read your whole story, but what kind of immature flake realizes she's unhappy WITHIN SIX MONTHS? I don't think you did anything wrong--sounds like you were a conscientious husband and she had no business fooling you into thinking she was an adult who was ready for marriage. Be glad you're done with her. I was not the most mature 28-year-old, but I knew when I was happy or sad. It's not terribly confusing for someone who has their act together. I have no doubt you'll find a wonderful adult, fall in love, and live happily ever after.

Is it possible that whatever is affecting the nerves in her face has damaged her brain as well?


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## turtle1214 (Oct 11, 2017)

Tatsuhiko said:


> I didn't read your whole story, but what kind of *immature flake* realizes she's unhappy WITHIN SIX MONTHS? I don't think you did anything wrong--sounds like you were a *conscientious* husband and she had no business fooling you into thinking she was an adult who was ready for marriage. Be glad you're done with her. I was not the most mature 28-year-old, but I knew when I was happy or sad. It's not terribly confusing for someone who has their act together. I have no doubt you'll find a wonderful adult, fall in love, and live happily ever after.
> 
> *Is it possible that whatever is affecting the nerves in her face has damaged her brain as well?*


I wish people would stop calling a soon to be ex names on this forum. There will be more than enough anger, pain, and resentment felt by anyone who posts. There's no need to add to the heap.

I was only conscientious after she left and I started reading relationship, separation, and divorce advice. I'm not being too hard on myself, it's the truth. The only way to grow is to accept the truth and the pain that it causes. My truth is that I was not the husband I thought I was. Nor was she the wife she thought she was. I'm certainly not glad that I'm "done with her". That would be the kind of cynical thought I would have had before. I'm done with the negativity that I've harbored in my heart. We've talked about being friends later in life. I think I would like that once I'm over the pain of our broken marriage.

Anything is possible. They could end up treating her and healing her and she comes back and wants to postpone or cancel the divorce. It's possible, but like I said, I'm not holding on to that hope anymore. Even if she did, I think I would want the divorce anyway. That way, we could start over. Go back to how it was before we were engage when there were no other pressures. We just wanted to love each other. Maybe having these thoughts means that I haven't truly started to let go. I don't know. Again, all what ifs that can only be answered with time. Until then, gotta focus on being the man I want to be.


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## ReturntoZero (Aug 31, 2015)

ReachingMyPotential said:


> I agree with this. My situation is almost the exact same as the OP. (my thread is somewhere below). Ultimately, I want someone (ideally my current wife) to be with me because she wants to be with me and I'm an incredible husband. That's the main learning point I'm taking in specific regards to a future relationship. Obviously, my main focus right now is working on myself and slowly becoming the man I want to be for myself and 21 month old son....but I do hope one day I'll be in a permanent healthy mental and emotional state where I can open my heart up to someone new and be her true partner.
> 
> That's the hope......but still hard to let go of my wife. She had a dream this past weekend of me being an a** hole. I fear her anger towards me will never go away.


You can always be the man of her dreams.


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## ReturntoZero (Aug 31, 2015)

Tatsuhiko said:


> I didn't read your whole story, but what kind of immature flake realizes she's unhappy WITHIN SIX MONTHS? I don't think you did anything wrong--sounds like you were a conscientious husband and she had no business fooling you into thinking she was an adult who was ready for marriage. Be glad you're done with her. I was not the most mature 28-year-old, but I knew when I was happy or sad. It's not terribly confusing for someone who has their act together. I have no doubt you'll find a wonderful adult, fall in love, and live happily ever after.
> 
> Is it possible that whatever is affecting the nerves in her face has damaged her brain as well?


Actually, if people don't fix themselves, they'll be right back here in a year or two.


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## SunCMars (Feb 29, 2016)

This illness has detached her from you, from herself.
She is flailing, questioning her existence, questioning life itself.

And she is bitter and angry.
And she is now consumed by her negative thoughts.

Stress.
Pulls and twists our resolve, breaking rationality.


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## trying2212 (Oct 26, 2017)

@turtle1214 I My situation is a little different than yours but so much of what you said in your original post resonated for me. 

I am 30 and my H is 28. We have been together for 10.5 years and married for 8.5 and have had a rocky relationship since before the wedding. We dated long distance for the first two years and were so into finding our happiness in the idea of being married and being together that by the time we lived in the same place and we started to see the incompatibilities we were so close to the wedding that we just chose to be okay with it. And though it was rough because we were young and immature and each brought our own baggage from our families, we had built our life around the idea that, like you said in an earlier post, that you just have to choose to be happy.

I think our downward spiral went unnoticed for many years because the issues were not, until recently, new issues. They were the fights that you have over and over again that seem like not such big deals at first but over the span of a decade become insurmountable if you don't deal with them (which we didn't. We chose to be okay and move on even though nobody was really okay.)

I had so convinced myself that the issues would go away if we just chose to be happy and chose to let go of the problems that couldn't be resolved. But in years 2, 5, and 7 I had nervous breakdowns of sorts. Anxiety and debilitating depression that required medication and intensive therapy. But as soon as I was at all better we chose to be thankful and move on without ever examining why it was happening. 

We were happy on the surface and maybe H was happy underneath (he says he was. He says he took for granted all the ways I loved and supported him because he assumed it would always be there regardless of what he did or didn't do.) We have a really great family with two awesome kids and we are good when we focus externally. 

But the unresolved usually comes up anyway. In year 8, instead of channeling my nervous, overhelemed energy inward I went outside of it and chose to have an affair. I confessed to my husband and we have been separated but trying to work on it.

But even though I feel remorse for the A and I want to feel the hopefulness that my H does that we can choose to get through it, I am kind of like your wife in that I can't, in this moment, choose to find my happiness inside my marriage yet. I can choose to keep being open and honest with H and working on my issues and working with him to be the best parents we can and I can sit without making any rash choices regarding divorce (because it really isn't what H wants and I want to try to reinvest with him because we do honestly care for each other, regardless of all the junk that has happened.)

But I am not in the feeling happy or hopeful place. And a lot of it has to do with how I feel about myself at this point. I helped create a relationship where I wasn't happy and then just allowed myself to be less and less happy and was unable to come up with creative solutions though i never hid my unhappiness when specific issues came up). I cheated, which was never something I felt capable of, and I hurt my H (who is really the nicest person on the planet, regardless of any issues he may have). I have lost my sense of self and I frequently hate who I am and it has come across as anger or resentment toward my H for the years of unresolved conflict. But at the end of the day, I'm not mad at him or blaming him. I'm mad at myself. I don't trust myself anymore.

I can't say for certain that your wife is feeling all these same things. I am not trying yo imply that she dod have an affair or that my a doesnt add a level of complexity that your marriage may not need to deal with. I can just say that you shouldn't take the weight of it all on your shoulders. Everybody contributes to the breakdown of a marriage (barring one of you being a sociopathic abuser or someone with extreme mental health issues). Your self-reflection is refreshing and will serve you well, whether your divorce goes through or not. Keep working on you and be gracious with yourself. It's hard enough out there without beating yourself up as well. I hope you and your wife find true happiness, whether together or apart.


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## turtle1214 (Oct 11, 2017)

Hi Trying2212

Thank you for your story. I hope you're taking care of yourself. Try to take your own advice and don't beat yourself up too bad. I firmly believe that it takes two people to fall in love and two people to fall out of love.

I'm definitely learning about being happy with yourself first. Nothing external will make you happy if you're not happy inside. I think that's where my wife is at. In fact, I think that's where we were both at. We were relying on external factors to make ourselves happy. I will say the one thing that has made the biggest difference for me is committing my heart to God. I've never been a religious person, but a few weeks ago I had a "coming to God" moment where it felt like God was a very real person reaching into my heart to take the blame I'd been holding on to. He replaced it with His forgiveness so that I could finally forgive my wife and myself for the mistakes we made that led us to this point. I've been going to church ever since and I can't describe in words how God has turned my life around in just a few short weeks. Before all of this happened, if I saw that kind of story, I would have shrugged it off as someone being delirious or seeking comfort from a figment of their imagination. Man do I understand it now. I'm at a place now where I can accept whatever God has planned for me. If that plan involves reviving my marriage or finding a new love or something completely unexpected, I know I can accept it knowing that His plan for me is good.

Though I can't help but hope, just a little, that God's plan is to revive my marriage. I've described it like putting that little bit of hope inside a box and putting the box in a corner of my mind to be used when it's needed. I don't know if that makes sense, but it makes me feel good.

I honestly don't know if there is someone else involved. I've accepted that it's a possibility and I've decided that even if it's the case I would want to try to make our marriage work. If she came back with both feet planted firmly on the ground in this marriage, then I'm all in. I would have a list of things we would both need to do in our marriage and some of the things on the list would be painful for both of us, but they would be necessary to have a healthy, successful marriage.

I don't cry anymore or have that knot in my stomach. I feel sad, lonely, angry, and defeated at times, but those feelings are becoming few and far between. October 25th was the two year anniversary of the day I asked her to marry me. That was a difficult day. My last difficult day. I'm sure the holidays will be hard because I got used to being a part of two families. I guess we'll see.


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