Snuffy

Danielito
2013-06-21 07:50:39 (UTC)

I wonder why I don't write..

I wonder why I don't write more. I like writing about myself. I find it therapeutic and I learn a lot about myself. So there must be some other reason that I don't write in here. I think it's because there is nothing good to report and I would just be ashamed about my lack of progress or my dismal future.
I had been feeling guilty for not loving Mary, for not having the motivation or desire to be the person she needed me to be and the person I wanted myself to be - essentially a missionary. I felt like my worst nightmare had come true, that being waking up next to someone I didn't know, didn't love, and wasn't attracted to. I regretted marrying her and I regretted having a child with her but those were things I was supposed to have done right. I was doing what I was supposed to! So I have been feeling guilty for having those horrible feelings and since my feelings were so harsh and awful I had to hide them from Mary. If I told her how I felt it would confirm all her suspicions and it would crush her and things would end in divorce. I couldn't do that. Besides, those feelings were evil and wrong anyway. So my only choice was to settle and learn to be happy being with someone who didn't understand me, with whom I could not engage in stimulating conversation, who was usually miserable because I wasn't meeting her needs. In my desperation and disappointment, and in baring the weight of my dishonesty I escaped in other ways. I threw myself at other dreams, like the band. I used porn as an illusion or a fantasy for real love. I played video games and spent hours on Facebook. Anything to escape reality. The loneliness eventually caught up with me and so did the effects of my addiction. I met someone at work who was fun and artistic and so much like me. It didn't help that she was very attractive. She soon represented everything I ever wanted that didn't have with Mary even though she didn't at all. But in my sick reality she was the girl of my dreams. I met with her in secret one time to talk about my marital problems with her being as how she might be the only person on Earth who would understand how I was feeling. Mary found out and things exploded. Trust was broken. I learned my lesson that this girl truly meant nothing to me. I built her up in my mind to be something ideal when she really wasn't anything. Well, Mary ended up making that same mistake later on. I didn't like it but I knew what she was going through. I thought she would get through the phase as quickly as I did but instead she hung on to that false reality for almost 2 years. More poison to our relationship.
So after 6 years of this mess, after 6 years of feeling regret and guilt and living in denial and shame and recommitting myself over and over to a relationship I didn't want to be in, and mustering up hope that through addiction recovery and eventually getting back to being the person I was when we were dating, I would be happy.
Well, the problem with that is, addiction recovery is proving to be a lifelong process. Also, I cannot again be the person I was when I got home from my mission because I'm not fresh off the mission and my focus and responsibilities are different. It is unrealistic to expect myself to be a missionary while not being a missionary. And finally, the biggest reason for my spiritual drought and all my escaping and my addiction stems from feeling hopeless and miserable in my relationship that is entirely unfulfilling. Being completely honest with myself and with the help of LDS counseling I have been able to rid myself of all those "evil" feelings that had been eating at me from the inside out and I don't have to run away from them anymore. Unfortunately for my marriage, it has been detrimental. Having to tell Mary that I regret getting married so quickly and forcing answers to prayer and explaining that I wanted to marry her because I wanted to rescue her from her horrible life but not taking into consideration any of MY needs, or even knowing what I wanted! Those were difficult things to tell her. They were difficult things for her to hear but she suspected all along anyway.
In my heart I feel like continuing in this relationship is not the best thing for either of us. I believe we will both continue to dream of a way out and slip into deeper and deeper bitterness. We both have concluded that the best next step is divorce.
We are still friends and we're not hostile toward each other. We plan to make choices based on London's best interest, such as living in the same town and moving back to Seattle at the same time eventually. We feel a sense of relief mixed with sadness. We are glad these feelings of hopelessness are fading away yet we are sad things turned out the way they did.
I feel the need to say also that I take responsibility for my actions. I knew better than to mess with something as destructive as pornography and it killed me inside and caused me to act out in ways which hurt Mary. I take responsibility for choosing to escape instead of dealing with my problems head on. I take responsibility for hiding things from Mary. I have made many mistakes in this marriage but when I get down to the core of our problems, we find that we had no chemistry, nothing in common, she wanted to get Married so badly, we became too physical while we were dating, blurring our scope of reality, and I had feelings of regret from day one.




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