Yuck.

K has been talking to his mom - she's taking the separation hard, and she's asked K if he has to lease an apartment, that's such a long time, couldn't he just get a hotel for a little while. She and I have talked, too, and I'm sure we'll talk more. She hasn't been told the whole saga of all the factors that have gone into this decision, and we haven't told family yet that this is more likely than not to be a permanent thing. Time enough for that later, when it becomes a definite thing. And really, I don't want to tell her all the factors that have come into play, at least for me. I don't think it's necessarily family's business to know all of the issues in our marriage - maybe I'm wrong, but I think some things are better kept between K and I. But if his mom persists in feeling like this should be resolved in short order, I may have to tell her at least some of my thought processes, to make it clear (hopefully) that, as far as I'm concerned, if our marriage can ever be saved and if we can work through things, that working through can't be accomplished in a short time.

But here are my thoughts on what has broken things up from my point of view:

*K felt like the sparkle was gone, the joy of discovering new things about a person. He chose to find something to fulfill that thing he was missing outside the marriage, through friendships. Don't get me wrong, I have no problem with K having friends - in fact, I'd never suggest that I should be his sole focus, I'd think that would make for a very unhealthy relationship if we didn't have friends outside of each other. No, where that becomes a problem is when those friendships start usurping time and emotions that should be reserved for your spouse.

*K allowed himself, not once but twice, to focus on other women instead of me, to the extent that he found himself developing romantic feelings for them. And if you're unhappy with your spouse, for whatever reason, and spend time, either in person or online/on the phone, with someone that you feel thinks more like you, is more of a soulmate or a kindred spirit than your spouse is, it's only natural that you might start to feel something more than friendship, some deeper connection. I confronted him the first time and he backed off. The second time, he didn't. I felt like I asked, begged, pleaded, told him he was taking me for granted - he agreed, and then nothing changed. He'd still say how high when JG said jump. He'd still cut and run when she called, no matter what a bind it might have left me in. His mom mentioned something about being concerned when she was in the picture so much, and I just touched on it briefly, saying yes, K spent a lot of time with her, and that hurt. Had I issued an ultimatum, said he had to choose between JG or me, I'm not sure which way that would have gone - he might have said at that point that he wanted out. All I know is, I felt like he realized what he was feeling for her and continued to pursue the relationship instead of backing away from it and honoring the commitment he'd made to me. If he'd done that two or three years ago, at that point we'd have still had a marriage that might could have been saved.

*It's not just the other women (although the emotional infidelity - because in my mind, that's what it was, investing time and emotions outside the marriage that he should have invested in me - is what has hurt the most, I think). For so long, I felt like I was carrying the load. He lost a good job through no fault of his own, and I know that was hard on him. But he got another job. That other job did allow him the flexibility to stay home with J for six months when I had to go back to work, and I am SO incredibly thankful for that - both for the flexibility and for the fact that K was willing to do it, because I'd have wanted to die if I'd have had to leave my baby in daycare when he was just six weeks old. But that job was also a temp position - he had work for as long as he wanted it, and he was quite good at what he did. But the salary wasn't great, there was very little in the way of benefits, and if there was no work coming in, he couldn't work and thus didn't get paid. When a job craps out for a week or two, that's usually manageable. But when it goes on for a month or two or six (yes, this happened once other than when he stayed home with J), that pretty much makes budgeting an impossibility. I tried to encourage and be supportive, I tried to help, finding job listings and sending out resumes and encouraging K to do that for himself. And he would, for a bit - he'd go in spurts and send out and apply and go on interviews as they came up. But then he'd get discouraged and quit looking, and wait for the temp work to come back. I was incredibly frustrated by what I saw as his not having the initiative to do whatever it took to provide for the family, I felt like the bulk of that burden was falling to me, even before J was born, and I was tired of carrying it. I couldn't understand how he could let things go on as they were.

Now, I think too much has been said as far as what each of us thinks we want - what he's said he'd look for in a woman is too different from what I am, and even if he said he wanted to come back, I think I'd still feel like I'd have to be mighty convinced that it was me he wanted, and not just the security of being married. I wish this were as simple as "honey, I slept with another woman, it meant nothing" or "I'm sorry I haven't helped out around the house, I'll do more to help in the future." But to me, it isn't. Even if K came back and was suddenly every woman's absolute dream in terms of helping with all the day-to-day stuff around the house, being totally considerate of my every need, helping with the cooking, doing everything absolutely right, I don't know if I'd ever be able to trust 1) that he really, truly, deep-down wanted *me*, and 2) that the development of feelings for someone else would never happen again. He didn't intend for it to happen the first two times. And unless I were his only friend, I don't think there's any guarantee that it wouldn't happen again, and I don't think I could carry on, being a happy wife, waiting for the othe shoe to drop, wondering if it would. It might almost be easier to get past involvement of another woman if it were someone K had just gone out and slept with in a moment of physical passion, a one-time thing, never to be repeated. I think that would have hurt less, and would have been something I could have gotten over more easily.

And not that this is all K's doing, not by any stretch of the imagination. I've come to realize that I was something of a control freak. I'm such a little bulldozer that I tend to take over everything without even realizing that I'm doing it. If I see something that needs to be done, I don't wait on someone else, I don't ask for help, I just jump in and do, and I can see where that might make K feel like I didn't need him. And if he was feeling trapped and not happy for some time before we talked about it, apparently there was something about me that made him feel he couldn't approach me with his concerns. Just like something about the relationship made him feel like he needed to look to outside sources for what he felt was missing. Add in the fact that in the past ten years, we've both grown and changed from the people we were when we met in 1993, and it may not be possible or advisable to try to go back to the "perfect" marriage people thought we had. Keep in mind, too, that this is my perception of things. Were K to write his side here, he very well might have a different perception. So I'm trying to just lay out things the way I perceived them, and the way they entered into my thought process - not trying to make K look like the bad guy. If he were a bad guy, I wouldn't have married him in the first place.

I hate that this hurts his family so much. I adore his parents. I hate that he's hurting, trying to talk to them about it. And maybe I'm inflexible and rigid to say I'd have to be seriously convinced if I were to ever consider working on the marriage rather than divorcing, and that K would have to work to win me back should that be something he feels like he wants to do - maybe the Christian thing to do would be to forgive if he's willing to make a sincere effort. But I don't think either of us should do that just because his parents are taking it hard. I think that would be a disservice to everyone, and I think if there's ever any chance of repairing the marriage, it would have to be something he and I each individually decided we wanted to do for our own sake - not for the other's sake, not for J's sake, not for our parents' sake, but because it was what was right for us. I just hope that his parents can eventually come to see that, even though this may not be the path any of us envisioned some years ago when K and I met and married, that it doesn't necessarily have to be a hideous ending, that we can still bring something good from change, that J can still grow up knowing he's got two parents who love him and who will always be involved in his life, even if they don't live in the same house.