Today Hurts

Today is painful.
I don't know where this post is going to go, but I feel like writing.

I miss my wife. I miss my kids. I miss my best friend.
Last night we had a family dinner at my dads house for my wife's birthday. It went surprisingly well. We had dinner, brownies, and then played sequence together. My heart aches for her to come home so bad, to be a family again. To let me throw her on the couch and kiss her. To come up behind her while she is doing dishes and wrap my arms around her and tell her I love her. To bring flowers home with me and surprise her. I want to hold her. I want to stay up late playing mancala and mall madness. I want to go to her with big decisions, concerns, fears, and questions in my life for input and support. I want to consult with her about our future. I want to lay in bed late at night and remind each other of old times and funny things the kids have done. I want to go to class with her at night. I want to stress about final exams with her. I want to drink sparkling cider in front of the fireplace with her for no reason other than to feel high-class and posh to unwind from a hellacious week. I want to read together with her at night once the kids are asleep....we never made it through the series we started together. I want to surprise her with a musical greeting card and a can of gourmet cookies on my way home from work for no reason. I want to waste a chunk of my workday on her with skype. I want to text pictures to her in the most creative ways I can think of to say "I love you", like nibbling chicken tenders into a "I, <3, U" shapes. I want to see a ring on her finger, and to feel like she is proud to be my wife. I want to not be able to find a babysitter when we desperately need a date night... so we give the kids a dose of benedryl and put them to bed by 7pm. I want to complain to her about how bad I want a dog and pretend like she is the one stopping us from getting a puppy. I want to braid her hair and for her to pretend like she isn't embarrassed.

None of that matters anymore.
She doesn't love me, and its my fault.

There have been some changes recently, at least in my mind, and I am officially admitting failure.
She has a place of her own now, she has a boyfriend she loves. She thinks this is what is going to make her happy, not me. I disagree, but that is irrelevant at this point. For the last several months, I have been holding her back from moving on. She has been committing adultery because I didn't "give" her a divorce when she asked for it long ago. She obviously doesn't love me anymore, our relationship means nothing to her. It is past my time, and I have filled out divorce papers to let her move on. My heart aches and yearns for her to lay in my arms, that term doesn't seem to do my feelings justice, but its the best I can do right now.

Even when we are together, were not together. Even when I hold her, I know she's not there. When I hug her goodbye I know that it's not the same. It's the shell of my wife. I miss her so much, and there isn't anything I can do to satisfy that yearning for her love, it really does feel like I'm lying next to a ghost.

"Theres too many questions
and too many strings
and they won't keep their self tied
On a roller coaster ride
It feels like I'm lying next to a ghost at night"
Right Where I Belong - 3 Doors Down



Every lost-love song seems like it was written about me, and how big of a screw up and failure I am.

Maybe she really is just too good for me. I genuinely do not know a single thing I could have done more to try and express my regrets and show my love for her. I'm not saying I did things right, I would change a lot if I could, but I gave it EVERYTHING I had and in the end..... I'm out. I want her to be happy, and if I cant give her that after the last 5 years, I guess its time to let her find it somewhere else.

Sometimes I wish she could see the changes I've felt in myself the last year. Maybe they are all in my head... maybe I'm just the same dirt bag that I've always been, just on a roll being able to abstain from my weaknesses in an effort to get her back?.... No, that's not true. I know that Jesus Christ is my savior. I know that through the grace of god I can rise above my character weaknesses and flaws, and turn them into strengths. I recently spent a lot of time alone on the road, a time that would have historically been very difficult for me. Instead of inner turmoil and temptation, I felt peace. I felt help. I felt the companionship of my grandfather in one particular leg of the journey. I'm being blessed, I'm experiencing a complete change of heart that I have been seeking. I don't want to change for her, I want her to change with me. I guess that is why young marriages are so prone to failure. Both people still have a lot of growing to do, and they could grow any number of directions.

I want it to go away, even for a moment.

"If I lay here
If I just lay here.
Would you lie with me,
and just forget the world?"
Snow Patrol - Chasing Cars


Well this post has been for no one but myself, and I feel slightly relieved of my bottled up emotions. I think I will end here, and write another post that may be of benefit to others who may read this someday for information on what I did or didn't do and how it affected the outcome of my troubled marriage.