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Posted by Eric on 4/3/2006, 2:04 am Seems pretty clear that you already know what to do in your situation given that, generally speaking, your advice to others seems pretty reasonable (with a possible exception here and there). So based on what you've been saying, it sounds like your wife has fallen into an extremely serious, long-term rut that she does not want to try to get out of. And no one can be helped that does not want to accept help… which you obviously know already. So it just comes down to acting on what you know. Maybe breaking it off with her may eventually lead her to snap herself back into shape. Regardless, saving yourself will still probably be your primary motivation if and when you call it quits. So consider that to be selfish. But what good is being unselfish if that only serves to extend the misery you and your wife seem to share? All that being said... I actually didn't initiate the break up with my wife because I let guilt pretty much consume and paralyze me. Eventually, she had to initiate the divorce. In a strange way she may have done it even more for my benefit than for her own. My non-action in this case was the real cruelty. She had already suffered too long by the time she finally did what she had to in order to end things. She actually tried very hard to make sure I didn't feel guilty about the divorce. She just genuinely could not stand the thought of me suffering even though I stood passively by (for years maybe), watching her do just that... suffer. I didn't cheat. I wasn't abusive. I just emotionally checked out of the marriage to the point that there wasn't really any marriage left at all. Ironically enough, since she's the one that took action, she ended up kind of feeling like she was the guilty party in the break-up... even though nothing could be further from the truth. With my new found freedom (and the energy that sometimes comes with that), I went back to school for a masters degree in cognitive neuroscience. Thanks to that and some spiritual exploration via Zen, meditation, etc… I now see myself and the world around me very differently (and all my relationships with family/friends have improved... at least a little bit). Also my ex-wife and I remain very close friends. Hell, I’m even good friends with her new fiancée. So now, three years after our divorce, things seem be working out as well as could be expected. So what does all that mean for you? Not a damn thing of course. It’s just somebody else’s story and not even anything close to the whole story. If there is a moral to the story, it may be this: Almost everyone is seriously messed up when it comes to relationships, but some people handle the messiness better than others. “Handling it” often means doing something. I did nothing. My wife did something. And what she did probably saved us both.
Jack:
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