Will There Really be a Morning

The husband and I discussed our separation last night. It was raw, painful, and very difficult. The hardest part of everything is that I still love him. I don’t love him in the way a wife should love a husband anymore but I still love, care, and want him to be happy.

I also need him to grow up. I need a responsible, adult partner in this roller-coaster life. I am tired, so very tired, of having to double check everything he does to make sure has covered all the bases and not dropped the ball. Last night we had one of the most honest discussions as we’ve ever had in our marriage. I think asking for a separation has finally been the wake-up call that I thought asking for counseling would have been.

I decided to just put what I am feeling out there and see what he his reaction would be. To be honest it was better than I had hoped for. Central issues in our marriage have been: his cigarette smoking, his pot smoking, his major, major mishandling of money, his family (Mom & Step-Dad, and Dad & Step-Mom), and his lack of responsibility manifesting itself by simply not living up his word. To put it simply, he has no follow through. He simply does not do what he says he will do whether it’s clean up the mess he made in the garage or not remembering to change the clothes in the washer to the dryer, thus mold and mildew smelling clothes that have to be re-washed.

What is so very hard about this relationship is he is not a “bad person.” He is wonderfully caring, and fun-loving. He is compassionate, with a heart the size of Alaska. He has an amazing work ethic and is always doing something at work to get ahead. Somehow, those wonderful qualities don’t translate to home and in so many ways he’s too much of a child.

I’m more his “mother” than wife and I cannot do this anymore. I need a life-partner in whom I have faith and trust. During the last 5 years I’ve long-since lost me and the definition of who I am. The values and ideals I once held so strongly to I’ve begun to question and the things I once thought were wrong don’t seem so wrong anymore. Due to the stress my health has deteriorated and I’m taking several medications for conditions I know I can get under control if I just get my life back. I cannot go on living under the amount of stress I am currently carrying. I’m also severely depressed. All the things which made me, well for lack of a better way of saying it, “me” have been disappearing little by little until I’m just a shell of my former self. I don’t like that.

I’ve been too-long living in the shadows of night and I’ve got to take my life back and find myself, and the light of day, again.