My future looks bleak
Just keeping it simple. I fell in love with "her" again! My mind wanders aimlessly when I am alone and sad, thinking about "her"; and the way she makes me feel! My wife isn't sure of our future either, however, we have agreed to talk it out and go to therapy. "She" is constantly on my mind, I can't help but think about "her", holding her hand, kissing "her" lips, or running my fingers through "her" hair. I want to feel normal again, there is so much I regret about how I handled my love for "her" and took my wife for granted. My wife is far from being a bad person, in fact, she deserves better than me. I don't know why she still loves me, there is still a place in my heart for her. The longer I stay away from "her" the more it hurts my heart, but my wife flourishes when I give her my love and attention. Here is the kicker, I don't feel any better when I pour my life into my wife. I don't understand this feeling whatsoever and it drives me insane! Where did the love for her go? Why can't I find the energy and will to make my wife feel special? Ripping "her" out of my life has been the most difficult thing I've had to endure. Even if my wife doesn't leave me, I will still feel empty. Over the last 17 years I've toiled and troubled over making enough money to keep her comfortable. We had a rough start. I feel absolutely guilty for treating her so horribly throughout our marriage. We both want more out of our relationship than normalcy. She wants to be pursued, loved and wanted and I desperately want to give her these things; I simply don't know how! My motivation wanes daily, my fire dies out slowly, her desire to stay has died a slow death; and our love bleeds out on the floor, neither one of us knowing how to apply the tourniquet. Have we really lied to ourselves this long? Has there been no real feelings other than mutual support? I've treated her as a second class citizen, she wants to be a priority. I feel worthless and hopeless when I am around her now; "she" has even rejected me! I always knew that, in the end, I would lose them both; left to fend for myself in a bleak future. It is in these moments of solitude, late at night, when my feeling for "her" comes back to haunt me. How do you keep fighting for someone you are trying to fall back in love with while ripping out your own heart to evict "her" from it? I think I welcome lonliness because, at least, I won't be hurting anyone anymore. I will live with the rememberance of them both in my heart, of knowing life loving one moreso than the other.
Replies
Sounds like you are sabotaging yourself. Decide what you want (marriage vs separation/divorce) and act accordingly. If you are bracing yourself for divorce and loneliness, continue working on creating distance between the two of you. If you want to rekindle the love, start courting her like there in no tomorrow.
By not taking a positive course of action, you remain were you are, waffling and indecisive.
The fact that you feel she deserves better than you.....You need to come to realize who YOU are. (You do NOT sound like an awful person with little to offer. ) Once you do some serious thinking....come to respect and care about YOU (what you want, need, have to offer........accepting who you are....the good and bad...)....then will you be able to SEE that you are a good person and you have alot to offer
Alot of us come from dysfunctional backgrounds. You pick up habits, you hear negative, hateful words sometimes (I did) and in our minds we come to believe them. Don't let unhealthy messages or old habits (the sabotaging Cora Belle mentions) define who you think you are.
Look within...accept your good and realize we ALL have our negative, bad stuff as well. We are human...difference is we can always strive to make that better (if we choose) If you can love and accept yourself....you will have ALL of that to bring to the table.
I'm working on that with my therapist and we are going to couples counseling. One thing I am working to change is my ambivalence to life. I'm more concerned with making the right decision rather than making the best decisions and I don't want to live that way anymore.