Dear Whale,
There are so many things that I wish I could express to you the way that they are in my head, but I know that my communication skills sometimes leave a lot to be desired. There are a few things that I would like to tell you and hopefully you will see my communication as a way for me to deal with our divorce. I certainly do not intend to 'attack' or berate you in anyway. This letter is also not intended to point fingers or place blame. With that, maybe I should just get on with it...
I was watching one of my favorite movies, The Day After Tomorrow. There is a scene in the movie where the divorced parents are concerned for their son's safety. The father agrees to go after the son. The parents embrace each other in a hug for several seconds and he departs. I now know why this particular part of the movie always makes me cry, I miss you, terribly. I am reminded of it every time I crawl into bed alone, or watch a movie alone, or play a game on the computer for 4 hours straight and don't hear, "Get off that damn thing!" More than anything I miss the idealism that I held for our marriage and for 'us'. I honestly thought that nothing would ever come between us. And yet, to look at us now, there are so many things that have. I feel sad for 'us'. I miss the peace that comes from knowing that I had married the woman I was going to spend the rest of my life with.
I wish I could look into your eyes and know the truth about what you wanted for us, and the truth about what you really wanted with me. There is a part of me that still wants you, us, and our family back together, to keep you as my wife for the rest of my life. I have thought considerably about asking you to come back, to try one more time, to see if we could make something more of our relationship. I guess that is the closest I can come to asking you. I would ask for the image and the idealism of the marriage we shared. I feel it is unrealistic of me to assume that you shared the same idealism that I did regarding our marriage. It was not something that we ever talked about. For that I am truly sorry. I will always grieve the loss of what I had envisioned for us. I still don't know yet, the reason you chose me.
Time has generously dulled my hurt, anger, disappointment, and animosity toward you personally. I now mourn the loss of the idealism that I thought we shared, 'till death do you part'. It is partly true though, because as we divorced, a part of me died. I will never understand why because, secretly, I wanted our marriage to be over from the first time you threatened to leave when we had only been married 8 months. But, there was a part of me that insisted that we would be together forever. I truly thought that. The thought of you leaving terrified me. I am a firm believer that you should only marry once. I think I get that from my parents who have always seemed to work things out and change with each other, rather than against each other. It seems the more we changed as individuals, the further apart we grew. I have come to terms with a lot over the last few years: the broken promises and broken marriage, the yelling and fighting, the lack of effort I felt was being exerted. I have been analyzing our marriage to find the dominant/submissive roles that we played and to help myself come to terms with how we interacted with each other. I have been on an emotional rollercoaster since we separated; it was the extremes of depression and euphoria, tears of joy then pain. I had considered counseling and suicide, drugs and alcohol, and a million other random thoughts that went thru my brain each day. In nearing the end of my trip to Disney Land, it seems to be a matter of, not life and death, but progress. Progress towards goals is what makes everything worth while. I have done more reading of self help books that I care to admit, and recently I have been focusing on making me a better person, in hopes that one day I can be a contributor to a near-perfect marriage.
I realize in this letter I have said nothing of our children; I love them very, very much, as I also love you, and always will. Regardless of what happens between us.
There are so many things that I wish I could express to you the way that they are in my head, but I know that my communication skills sometimes leave a lot to be desired. There are a few things that I would like to tell you and hopefully you will see my communication as a way for me to deal with our divorce. I certainly do not intend to 'attack' or berate you in anyway. This letter is also not intended to point fingers or place blame. With that, maybe I should just get on with it...
I was watching one of my favorite movies, The Day After Tomorrow. There is a scene in the movie where the divorced parents are concerned for their son's safety. The father agrees to go after the son. The parents embrace each other in a hug for several seconds and he departs. I now know why this particular part of the movie always makes me cry, I miss you, terribly. I am reminded of it every time I crawl into bed alone, or watch a movie alone, or play a game on the computer for 4 hours straight and don't hear, "Get off that damn thing!" More than anything I miss the idealism that I held for our marriage and for 'us'. I honestly thought that nothing would ever come between us. And yet, to look at us now, there are so many things that have. I feel sad for 'us'. I miss the peace that comes from knowing that I had married the woman I was going to spend the rest of my life with.
I wish I could look into your eyes and know the truth about what you wanted for us, and the truth about what you really wanted with me. There is a part of me that still wants you, us, and our family back together, to keep you as my wife for the rest of my life. I have thought considerably about asking you to come back, to try one more time, to see if we could make something more of our relationship. I guess that is the closest I can come to asking you. I would ask for the image and the idealism of the marriage we shared. I feel it is unrealistic of me to assume that you shared the same idealism that I did regarding our marriage. It was not something that we ever talked about. For that I am truly sorry. I will always grieve the loss of what I had envisioned for us. I still don't know yet, the reason you chose me.
Time has generously dulled my hurt, anger, disappointment, and animosity toward you personally. I now mourn the loss of the idealism that I thought we shared, 'till death do you part'. It is partly true though, because as we divorced, a part of me died. I will never understand why because, secretly, I wanted our marriage to be over from the first time you threatened to leave when we had only been married 8 months. But, there was a part of me that insisted that we would be together forever. I truly thought that. The thought of you leaving terrified me. I am a firm believer that you should only marry once. I think I get that from my parents who have always seemed to work things out and change with each other, rather than against each other. It seems the more we changed as individuals, the further apart we grew. I have come to terms with a lot over the last few years: the broken promises and broken marriage, the yelling and fighting, the lack of effort I felt was being exerted. I have been analyzing our marriage to find the dominant/submissive roles that we played and to help myself come to terms with how we interacted with each other. I have been on an emotional rollercoaster since we separated; it was the extremes of depression and euphoria, tears of joy then pain. I had considered counseling and suicide, drugs and alcohol, and a million other random thoughts that went thru my brain each day. In nearing the end of my trip to Disney Land, it seems to be a matter of, not life and death, but progress. Progress towards goals is what makes everything worth while. I have done more reading of self help books that I care to admit, and recently I have been focusing on making me a better person, in hopes that one day I can be a contributor to a near-perfect marriage.
I realize in this letter I have said nothing of our children; I love them very, very much, as I also love you, and always will. Regardless of what happens between us.
Jizr
1 comment:
WOW! You DO have a heart! :) I am very impressed General. I am glad you are dealing with your feelings this way. It is a good step forward in the process of healing. If you need anything I'm here.
Luv ya kid!
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