My husband and I have been together for almost 10 years. We’ve got two amazing kids, a house, a life.
But behind closed doors we fight constantly and are miserable. I have some pretty serious mental health issues and have recently gotten off of an antidepressant that I thought was helping me but was really making me numb to everything.
He’s been expressing his deep unhappiness and pain to me for years. I’ve been careless with his heart. I’m impulsive, defensive, cold, introverted. I love him deeply but my exterior was always this unhappy person who didn’t show love consistently. He begged me for years to be better, to show him love, to be affectionate.
He dearly loves our children and I know he stayed with me as long as he did because of them. He has a stable job, is extremely loyal, a great person. Has his flaws but I’m certain many of them were from years spent with this bitter awful wife. 😔😫
Anyway, now he’s left. Meeting other people. And the scales have fallen, as they say. Alone here at night seeing just how much I hurt him. I didn’t try to hurt him. But I was depressed, lost inside myself, a tired mom, angry. So angry at life.
Now the anger is gone and I’m just bereft. Baffled that I pushed this wonderful man away. How fucked up can one person be?! I know in my heart I’m not malicious, mean spirited, I truly never set out to hurt his feelings or make him lose his confidence. It was just my nature and he tried for years to stay but it sucked out his heart and soul and now he’s getting some distance from me which he so deserves. Getting good connection with other people and truly I’m happy that his heart can heal.
But I’m also devastated. I never wanted to lose him but never saw clearly what I was doing to him. Now I do and it’s too late.
He said maybe in the future we can revisit us, that he will always love me, I will always be important to him but he’s gotta do what’s right by himself. Feel good again about life.
He said you need to be a healthy person.
And im supporting him because he’s right. He deserves to see what better things could be out there for him. But it doesn’t make it not hurt. It’s hurts so bad and it hurts to see how I was hurting him for years.
Anyway. Classic “you don’t know what you’ve got until it’s gone.” It’s true. The years of anger and defensiveness were worthless. I wasted years of being an angry bitch.
And now even if it takes years, I will get better. I want him back. Don’t deserve another chance but must be ready if it happens. Not this week or next month but when I’m truly a healthy me. It very well might be too late…but I have to deal with that and get better because it’s the right thing to do. I hope he will have me. I will always love him. I’m getting off the meds, getting committed to healing my mental/emotional mess of a self.
Just wanted to share this. Maybe hear some encouragement but admonishment too because lord knows I could have used more of that the past several years.