Update:
On Friday I sent her a letter in an email, and a text letting her know I sent a letter. The letter details essentially the following:
That I need things to change.
That it's difficult to feel like she is a fully safe partner with this constant blaming happening.
That our relationship has been under a lot of stress, and that taking a break will allow that stress to reduce, and hopefully our nervous systems to relax.
That she has work she needs to do, and that I cannot help with or direct this work. It's 100% on her.
That we are taking a four month break from couples therapy.
That we each will be focussing on our own healing and that I'm stepping back from trying to direct reconciliation.
That I'm not giving up on us, we are just taking a break so we can de-stress and work on our own stuff.
I don't believe she has read the letter yet, but I also said in the text that it's not a rush. It's not a rush because I don't require her to agree with me or for us to discuss it even. I'm not sure if she will be happy about it or not. She might be upset that I'm acting unilaterally. Which I get. Or she might feel relief that we can stop stressing about things for a while. I just don't know. Either way I'm committed to the plan.
A couple of interesting observations from this:
- Before sending the letter I was very stressed about it and how she would react. I'm still a little stressed waiting for the blow up actually. But it's interesting to me how dependent my emotions are on hers. I'm starting to notice my co-dependent traits in real time. When she is around, and being kind (which is the majority of the time), I feel relaxed and not angry at her, but the affair is never far from my mind. When she is not around I get to thinking about all the things she did and I start to get angry again. It's such a strange dynamic.
- After I sent the letter, I felt an immediate sense of relief. All weekend I have been more relaxed, and have had more capacity to focus on other things. I play a sport, and performed MUCH better in the sport than normal. So much so that other people noticed and commented. I had more mental room to plan and work on projects that need completing around the house.
- Another thing that I appreciate is I started to feel my confidence and self esteem returning. I didn't realize how low it had gotten. I was walking around all the time with a cloud over my head. Sad about how her choices have affected me, and what those choices mean for the future. That seems to have lifted a bit. Hopefully it's not a fleeting feeling.
- One of the more interesting parts for me is that I have been more relaxed around her. It's been easier to feel relaxed because this big weight of having to figure out the relationship has been lifted. I'm in a watch and see kind of mode now. If I want to do something nice for her, before all this stuff would come up and it would diffuse that feeling. That has subsided quite a lot.
- Another interesting part is that before hitting send, I was having a lot of doubts about if the letter was a good idea. After, it sort of solidified my resolve. I know I am all out of patience for her blaming me. That needs to change for sure, and thats why I wrote the letter. But I didn't expect my resolve to solidify like this.
Overall I can now see what people are talking about with detachment. I don't like it, and wish I wasn't here. But it is already helping for me to stop trying to control her, and stop trying to make her be this way or that way. Instead I think about what I want and what will help me.
In the long run I think this will either help us relax and stop walking on egg shells all the time, or it will reveal that we have different goals for our relationship.
