• secretlife said on Feb 05, 2007....

  she.

  i remember back when i was married just 5 years.

  i remember those first years so very well.....those were the years i was so confused because i had imagined them as happy times, and they were sad and lonely times for me.

  i felt as though i had become invisible to my husband.  i didn't know what i had done to cause this, and i was sure it was somehow my fault.

  i would try so hard to be seen! 

  i didn't write a letter to him.  i tried instead to talk to him about it.  i thought he heard me, and for a week or two, things would be different.  and then slowly it would go back to how it was before. i did this over and over and over for 10 years.

  for a while i thought i might be crazy.  i could not understand.  and so i'd try harder.  try all sorts of different strategies.....i had my children, and i found fulfiment in the role of mother.  but still.....i needed to be seen as a woman.  i needed a friend in my husband.  someone to talk to and confide in.

  unfortunately for me, confiding in him became something i could no longer do.  i learned that through his reactions to me.  i learned that there were things he didn't want to know and would just ignore or simply not tolerate.  so i learned to keep secrets.

  i just want to tell you that i understand how it feels to live with someone and feel like you might die of lonliness.  it's so ironic.  i will never get over how i can sleep right next to someone and feel alone.

  i think it would be a good thing to share your letter with him.  maybe it will open up some communication.  maybe by telling him exactly how it feels to be you, he will HEAR and SEE you.  It surely can't hurt.  I say that because you already hurt.

  it took me more than 10 years to carve out time for me away from him.  it was not how i wanted my life to be.  i fought it until i had to do something or simply disappear altogether.  because i was so unhappy, it was affecting how i was with my kids.  when i saw this.....how resentful and angry i was towards him, and how it was the holding in of this anger because i felt it futile to try to change him at that point, i demanded things.  i simply told him, hey, this is how it is going to be.

  i think time for you is very important.  no matter what you do with that time.  at first i would shop, and not for my family, for me.  little things.  i did alot of just window shopping.  i got my hair done....sometimes my nails done.  other times i would get my eyebrows waxed or take a walk.  eventually it became second nature to take this time....and it expanded over the years.  i joined a gym, made some friends, and did things to make myself happy. 

  in the end, i understand your wanting to keep your family in tact.  that's been the my goal for the past 17 years.  but i wanted to do that ONLY if i could do it without the anger for my husband.  i wanted my children to see him as a good man....because he really is a good man.  so i had to make many changes to myself, because i also realized i could not change him.  no matter how much you love someone, you cannot change them.  this was a very hard lesson for me to learn.

  i wish you luck with him.  and i hope you find a way to be yourself and make yourself happy.  the trick to it all is realizing that you have to be happy in order to make others happy.  it's a hard thing.  but if you really try, you can have it.

   

   

• gingersoul said on Feb 05, 2007....

  She......it takes courage to open up such wound to your clueless husband and let him see through your pain.

  But you made a conscious and respectable decision. You will not leave your marriage but you will find time to found yourself again.

  I have been there. Waking up some day and realizing that the real me somehow disappeared in that relationship, the same one that until few moments before had brought me joy and love and happiness. How did it happen?

  You look around and dont find yourself. You wake up in the morning and look in the mirror and you ask "Who is she?

  This slipping out of  yourself is a long, silent process. Nobody came and stole your identity. You did all by yourself. This is the most horrible truth to face.

  You let things changing you. You let that love changing you.

  I knwo that my ex most likely was changed too but too busy in some other things to notice it.

  I was crying for my old myslef. Where it was the girl i knew?

  I look for help through my friends. As usual. They supported me and told me to go and find the meaning of that marriage, the reason of my choices. i did. I stayed. I was going to leave him twice. But i didnt do it. I realized i was loving him too much to leave.

  But i had to shift my priorities. I had to be ableto find myslef again. 

  I think your letter is a brave act. Give it to him. You need the time for yourself but he needs to know where you are.

  Remember Virginia Woolf? She wrote "A room of one's own". Its a great book and talk about how is important, expecially for a woman, not to loose her own identity  in a relationship. We are guilty of doing it so often.......

  You are going to be fine {{{hugs}}} 

• sheissilent said on Feb 06, 2007....

  Secret and Ginger, thank you. This is selfish, but it's nice to know there are other women who feel as lost as I do.
   
  Now I just need to get the courage to actually give it to him.

• secretlife said on Feb 06, 2007....

  she:  sometimes you have to be a little bit selfish.  always give give give and you run out of energy to give more....the selfish times let you revitalize so that you can go back and find it in yourself to give again.

• gingersoul said on Feb 06, 2007....

  She....selfish is the wrong word....i would call it survival ....if you want to survive and come back to foudn yoursefl  give him the letter.......gather your strenght and walk to him witha smile...he needs to know and if you love him you are going a favor to him.... at the end.... 

  what do you have to loose?

  the life you are living now that, according to your wordd, is a semi-life?

  {{{hugs}}}

   

• evillinclinations said on Feb 20, 2007....

  She, I don't think it's selfish at all. Everyone needs to feel like they have something...otherwise life feels empty and it becomes hard to feel human.
  I agree with Ginger, that it is a necessity for survival. It's hard to stay on the track when your soul gets buried in the mud.

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