email to a spouse

Husband,

I have given your notes, your words, your actions, your desires, your hopes, your wants a lot of thought.  Agonized.  Prayed.  And I understand what you are asking.  I understand your point of view.  But, it does not work for me.

It has been too long.  At this point in time,  I need to focus on healing me and not be pushed to be healing the relationship.  I don't mean it unkindly, but the relationship weight has always fallen on me.  I have always had to make it work.  I have had to become someone else or change who I am.  The ways in which you have treated me run so deeply that it's not a quick fix.  And being in the same house is truly destroying me.  My health is suffering more than ever.  My sleep is worse than ever.  Because you disregard it when I tell you what I want and what I need and how I feel.  It simply becomes a negotiation.  And I don't have it in me to keep on negotiating.  

While I understand how you feel about the kids and both of us being here, I believe that we can handle it maturely and kindly if we choose to.  We can both let them know that both parents love them all and that this affects them but isn't about them.  I believe that living apart can be healthier for them at this point in life.  The stress level will reduce in their parents.  Our attention will be able to be more centered on them and how to make good decisions for them.  Kids all over the world have parents that live apart for various reasons.  They are not destroyed.  What destroys is having to try to choose or always feeling panicky wondering what is happening.  I feel like that is what is happening right now.  

I don't want to battle.  Yet, I can't give in to what you are asking.  Your being here hurts me.  You have hurt me.  And I can't say when or how I will heal, but I can say that I need a chance to do so.  I can't give you promises of when I will or if I will be ready to work on us....because an us needs to be two I's and I feel like I disappeared.  When I express what I need or how I feel, you simply disregard it and tell me how I should be feeling.  Or that my words are not worded right.  Or that it's not fair to hurt you.  You are not a safe place for me to share who I am, what I hope to become or how I feel.  And honestly, you never have been.  Our life has revolved around you.  You would let me say my stuff, but you were really only engaged and active when it had to do with you.  I know that these things hurt, but these things must be addressed....not by us, but by you.  I have my own things to address and learn to do better.  

Your being here is hurting me.  I've said it over and over.  I've asked you to leave.  I've told you what I need.  I've been as clear as I know how to be.  But you have had to deal with it with having your options.  Let me tell you about your latest option and how it feels to me.  Moving into the boys' room initially struck me as a bad idea, but I didn't know why, so I camped on it, thought about it and worked it through.  It means that they would be giving up privacy that high school boys deserve.  It means that you would "own" the room.  That just seems off.  Yet, I gave it so much thought and prayer because of the person that I am.  I thought, "oh look, he's trying to help and do something and I need to be kind and try to meet him partway."  But do you understand that you didn't really meet my needs at all with that offer?  It didn't address how day to day life would work.  How the boundaries would look.  How church would work.  It didn't address how we would communicate about the children.  How life could get to a normal state.  A new normal.  It didn't address the space and separation that I've asked for.  All it gave me was a room.  It didn't honor the needs of MY heart that I've laid bare before you though it is a very painful place.  Though I feel like a failure.  It didn't address what is happening and how bad things are, what it mostly addressed was how you hope that everything will be better between us.  

Frankly, a letter like that years ago would have gone a long way.  If you could have heard me then.  Remember when I said "Our youngest has six years to go and then I'm done...."?  Well, now she only has four more years.  Two whole years have gone by.  There has been no action.  There has been no change.  You are working on you but what you don't understand is that there is no indication in the way you hear me or respond to my needs.  We are not equal partners.  In order for things to work, I have to give up what I need or feel.  And for a long time, I regarded that as my christian duty.  But I am to die to Christ.  Not to Husband.  I am to live abundantly.  Joyfully.  Fully.  But I can't.  You want me, but it doesn't feel like a good kind of wanting.  It feels like you want to keep me like a bird in a cage and see me or admire me when you want to but never let me do as I was created to do and be.   You want to hear me sing.  You want me to make you feel good.  And the thing is....I wanted those things to.  That is who I am.  I LIKE bringing pleasure to people.  It blesses me.  But with you.....it began to harm me.  Because it came at the cost of being able to be myself.  

So....all you can do is ask forgiveness?  That you have done.  And I have told you.  I DO forgive you.  But I will not forget.  And I will not live this way anymore.  I CAN'T live this way anymore.  As odd as it is, when praying, I know that moving forward is the way that God is leading me.  Not in an unkind way, but in order to show you compassion.  Because if we were to continue living in this way, eventually I would only hate you.  I would become a bitter wreck of a woman.  As it is, I am grievously wounded.  I must heal.  I don't know how to make you understand.  Therein lies the problem.  This is exactly why I need the separation.  Because I can't ever get through with my deepest feelings.  I don't know how to make you hear me.  And it is driving me crazy to hear how you love me yet feel how you disregard me.  They don't mesh.  So I am begging you to find somewhere as soon as possible to stay.  Friend's houses.  Hotel.  That is your job to figure out and yet I keep trying to.  And when we get a tax refund, we will find you a house or an apartment with a pool....that would be fun with the kids.   But I'm asking for you to do it absolutely as quickly as possible.  Each day is wearing on me.  And pushing me further away.  Because each day makes me know how you are not hearing me nor seeing me.  

I am sorry for you to have to read this.  I hurt for you.  I know that it will cut deeply.  And I have wished you no pain.  It is why I cover for you, protect you, sacrifice my feelings instead of yours.  Please help me in making this as easy for the kids as possible.  Please.  

wife