letting go

i recently read that insanity is doing the same thing over and over, but expecting different results.

i think i am insane.

well i sure hope i'm not, but if that is the definition, i might be close. i kept hoping things would be different "this time," yet each time he'd come back, we'd fall into the same pattern. sometimes it would take a few months, but most recently (although he hadn't moved back), it only took a couple weeks. this is even after i made it clear that we NEEDED a plan. a plan! yes, we would not continue making the same mistakes, repeating history, beating a dead horse.

let's just say it don't take a whole day to recognize sunshine 'round here. no plan, same problems. even though i want it so badly, there's no way to heal together if healing isn't part of your frame of mind. and, you sure as hell can't make someone see what needs to be healed if they don't want to do the work.   sometimes that healing needs to go back to before you as a couple even existed. some wounds run deep and long and unless you're ready to look at them really really hard, good luck being in a healthy relationship.

something i have for sure learned is that there is no one person guilty at the failure of a relationship. both people play such crucial roles in the relationship that i see how divorce is considered 'no fault' in minnesota. kind of like certain kinds of car accidents. sometimes they are just so messy and complex and impossible to separate one reason for a divorce from another.

i still cry, but they're not tears that come on with seemingly no reason. they don't last like they used to either. the whole idea of being single again has begun to hurt less. i'm less afraid and far less desperate. i was willing to make all sorts of concessions, to put my values and the things that matter to me aside in hopes of having us work out. i realize that isn't realistic. i also realize i can't make him see me for me, for the good i brought to our life together. the things he would need to do to see that would require him to make huge changes. honestly, i don't think he can see things the way i do, how things could be if he'd just try a new way of doing things. it pisses me off that i've been here, seeing him along this journey with his career and now i won't get to enjoy the life we could have had together once he gets into a position that doesn't require so much travel. all the bad, none of the good.

i know i've done my share of changing. i've been so.damn.patient. so kind, understanding. convenient. THERE. never again. i'm better than this and i deserve better. it'd even be better to be alone than to be treated with such irrelevance. what i do for everyone in our family is worth more than any dollar amount and most of what happens would go undone if i wasn't the one home taking care of things.

there are better days ahead. no more feeling like i'm re-reading the same chapter of the same book over and over and over again. no more feeling like magnets with the opposite ends pushing together, getting SOOOO close, just to push away. that's how this marriage has felt. we come really close but we just never really align. always just a minute too late or a few steps ahead or behind all the time. my days ahead will feel bright, kind and full of love and opportunity.