If it weren't for my marriage, and more than that even, my daughter, I'd have long been ready to move on. I know separation is the right path. But.. But there are those things that haunt me about the decision, and I don't know how to reconcile those feelings: I'm letting my husband down, letting everyone down, my daughter, his family, myself? This is a failure, the failure started long ago, when I married the wrong person, ignored my truth. I'm choosing this path only for my personal happiness, my fulfilment, nothing else. I like our marriage (not all the time, in fact we've had so much struggle to be a good couple), but I like our home, it's warm and comfy, I like our family, the 3 of us. I love my husband, he's my best friend. Changing everything shakes up my daughter's world. The future is unknown, a bit scary. Separation complicates everything, all the choices we make, where we live, I really wanted to be making plans at this point to move home, to be near my family so my daughter can grow up with her cousins and aunts, uncles, grandparents. But my truth has always been there, and it will never go away. And I don't want it to go away. I'm a happier person when I live truer to me. And I suppose there's a part of me that wishes life were simpler, but really I don't want to change who I am or how I got here. My heart is torn in two in so many ways... I need and want to follow my truth, to separate from my husband and find love with a woman. But my heart is also with him, and with our marriage, our family, for all the reasons I said above. I want to be at home, with my family, to have that life for my daughter, with her family nearby. I have amazing friends there as well, so much love and support. But part of me loves where I am. It's an ocean away, but my daughter feels this is her home. I found myself here, starting following my truth here, am building an amazing community here. I guess I don't really know what else to say about this right now. I'm just trying to sort through all of these feelings.
This is a bit of a cop out. Yes, your marriage was a mistake. You need to own and accept that. You are in jeopardy of an even bigger failure if you stop short of living authentically by hiding behind your husband and child. How many times did Thomas Edison "fail" before inventing the electric light bulb? Going down the wrong path and correcting the mistake is not failure. The failure comes if you see the mistake and don't correct it.
I think you stated your truth quite eloquently ... it is multifaceted and contains contradictions. You don't have to blow-up your family to follow your truth, if that's the path you choose. If it is healthy for you and your family and no laws are being broken it's complete valid. Things will no doubt continue to evolve and you'll no doubt recognize when bolder changes are needed if you lay aside the intellectual struggle and rely more on your intuition and heart.
Thank you siennafire,I've been trying to summon this internal voice that pushes me forward, and it really helps to hear something to push me a bit in seeing things clearly. Just to clarify though, I'm not saying that I'm rethinking my decisions, just that I'm having trouble accepting them. And the big hang ups I have are what I stated here. It's true what you say, though. It would be a bigger failure to keep going in this life. I need to keep all of this in the right perspective. and I think I need to accept that this is going to be painful for us all while we adjust. But it's still the right path for all of us as well. ---------- Post added 20th Dec 2016 at 07:21 PM ---------- I know it sounds like i haven't really chosen my path but I have, it's happening, we're moving forward with it. Just very very slowly. That's maybe one of the reasons it is so full of emotional twists and turns...we're just moving at a snail's pace and confronting these feelings over and over.
