Leaving A Door Open.
I struggle constantly with finding the rationale for why I can't just let this go. I know I can't fool myself into thinking I'll be happier if I just walk away and let time heal the longing I feel for Sara. I also know that I won't fool myself into thinking my life will be joyous if I make the committment to Sara and create our own life for each other. I have a wonderful and fun life, yet I'm not truly happy if Sara isn't in that life in some way. So I foresee the first scenario as being a daily struggle to accept that I will never be truly happy. In the second scenario, I foresee my (now) daily longing to have Sara in my life replaced with a daily heartbreak of seeing how our decision has disrupted the lives of the ones we love. So, my logical brain tries to conjure up a midground where everybody can be happy. Unfortunately, that place always leaves Sara unhappy. So I keep trying.
posted by do_in_it_2 | 6:03 AM
4 Comments:
Ah ha. This is a classic Zen/Buddhist conundrum. It is the longing that creates suffering. Suffering is not real, it is created. It is a choice of response, among many, to a situation that could inspire other choices. And the other thing that strikes me is the idea of (logically) finding a middle ground that enables everyone to be happy. Since -most- people end up desiring monogamy, it is not possible or feasible for any of you to end up happy if two of you (you and Sara) are, in fact, married to others. Sara wants you all to herself. Reality dictates that will not ever be possible. She will never be happy if you are married to someone else. She is not happy with just a longterm, lifelong affair. Very few people are (and even fewer of their spouses would be!). Hence there does not seem to be a middle ground.
If this were not an affair, would you have hung on for this long? Would you have spent the last four+ years on this, with similar thoughts? You can know, rationally, that a marriage with her would never work. So why is it acceptable to maybe just see her a few times a year, driving yourselves crazy in between? What are you getting from the minimal, infrequent contact and sex (especially lately) that enables you to know (rationally) that a relationship with her would not work (but the affair does)?
I guess it just seems to me that you're not very compatible, you know. If you were both single (but with kids), would you be living together, raising her kids? Would you be waiting for ultimatums and conflicts, or growing tired of them? At the current moment, if we look at this just as a relationship, it seems to have a lot of strikes against it. Distance, infrequent time spent together; competing desires and wishes for the future; incompatible coping skills; insecurities that don't seem to dovetail. Sorry for all my thinking aloud! --VM--
hey there,
I've missed you.I am sorry you are suffering.
You are trying to fix a problem with out changing the equation at all. I am sad for you, honey, because I don't think that is ever going to work. I am afraid that for Sara to be happy in this relationship the equation must change, where as you would be happy to have left it as it was. Maybe I'm wrong, just my opinion. I am worried you are going to be hurting from this for a long time.
You need to talk, you know where to find me.
TME
VM - You're right - she'll never be happy if I'm married to somebody else. I know that, but seem to forget that. Or want to forget that.
TME - You're right - if I don't change the equation, how can I expect anything to change.
There is such a thing as a bad habit. And there are people in our lives who can be "bad habits"--I say bad because we can't 'be' with them nor they us- but we are so used to what we had with them, its hard to give up. But its not healthy for us. I think you are only so drawn to her because she's not yours. If she were yours you would go back to having 24/7 feelings for her (thats what marriage are) and lose the spark. Marriage is a partnership--not a butterflies in your stomach moment. You really really would do both of yourselves a favor by letting go.
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