No Butterfly Here

Things have been less than perfect between my husband & I lately.  He is trying to be supportive, to "give me room", but in truth he just wants the old me back. 

I don't have the will to fight. I don't have the words to explain. I don't want to do this anymore. So I did what I do best. I sat down and wrote this letter. 

I have been fighting the computer for 2 days. It is insistent that the letter is going to be in blue. It also changes the font size towards the end. Sorry, I've done all I can and I'm tired of messing with it (story of my life :)
Anyway, here it is:

Good Morning, I'm a little unsure how to get this going. There are things I want to say but getting them in order on paper is harder than writing them in my head all night and again this morning.

I don't know exactly when or where things reached the breaking point for me. I don't know how much of it is an accumulation of life events, how much is physical and how much is spiritual. What I do know is that all 3 are broken and I feel helpless to fix it.

You and I both know things weren't perfect before the breaking point. I struggled with many issues. But I had hope. Life wasn't a party, great moments were few but it was worth living and I believed with everything in me that it could and would get better.

Even in the good times I always questioned my motives and my genuineness of the love I offered you.
I needed you. You were my hiding place and nothing else mattered except the fact that I was safe. No one could hurt me. I would be whatever you wanted. Just keep me safe.

I feel that the only place in my life where I was a success was in my ability to love our girls, unconditionally, even in the most hellish of situations. I also give myself credit for my ability to hope against all hope for their deliverance. To believe for, pray for and stand for them, never wavering in my love for them or my belief that God could and would make a way for their escape. And He did.

There was always something concrete to believe for concerning the girls. Always something I could identify, claim, stand for and believe for. I watched with a grateful heart as one by one they were delivered from abuse and bondage.

This was not the case for me. Though I held the same beliefs and stood with the same faith, my situation grew worse and not better.

I could never quite put my finger on what my issues were. It went beyond a certain behavior (like spending) or a certain weakness (like depression, perfectionism, etc.). It was me. ALL of me. Not an issue but an all encompassing “why?”.

I NEVER felt like I fit in this world. I believe that even God Himself made a mistake when He sent me to this earth. It feels like there is a reject pile in heaven where the ones that have unchangeable flaws are stored. Something went terribly wrong. Someone made a grave mistake and chose from the wrong pile and accidentally sent me to earth.

Now, in order to maintain their perfect reputation that “all are fearfully and wonderfully made”, they continue to pretend there was no mistake. Even heaven itself has no way to repair the irreparable.

I know that all sounds stupid. I know everyone believes otherwise. I tried really hard to believe it too. But it didn't work. I don't work. I am flawed. I am broken. It is cruel for the world to continue to demand that I be what I am not.

Dave (my therapist) says I can overcome all this with a lot of hard work. Chris (our marriage counselor) said we could have a good marriage with a lot of hard work. But I have worked very hard for 50 years to exist. I have worked very hard on this marriage for 2/3 of my life.

I don't have anything left. I am depleted.

I don't know if all this negativity can be managed, harnessed and redirected.

I have put my faith in many things. In medication, in God, in people. I have tried to balance all these variables. Trying to find the right formula to normality. I have failed. I am not normal. I will never be normal. I don't want to live another day trying. I'm tired. I just want peace.

It would seem so logical to take a hopeless life and end it. But I don't want to die. I want to live.

I just don't want to live this way anymore.

I don't know what any of this means for us. I love you. But that love is a love of respect and admiration. I have no passion left in me. No passion for life, for God, for you, our children or our precious grandchildren.

 I am so deeply woven into the fabric of your life and of our children's lives that to try to extract myself would be to unravel the entire thing. This is a burden I can hardly bear. I can't go forward with any hope and I can't go back and undo.

I feel incredibly sorry for the years I feel you have wasted on me. I feel I owe you for the years of unconditional love and acceptance, but my account is depleted. I have nothing to offer. I don't want to try to work up or find an offering. I don't want to continue to be a bottomless hole. And that's what I am.

If we continue the way we are, you will spend the rest of your life pouring and pouring and pouring into my life. You need to understand that you will never receive a fraction of what you give in return. A bottomless hole never gets full and never gives back. It is an impossibility.

I don't know what to do. I thought if I just held on long enough, tried enough ideas I would find an answer. I have not. I don't hold out much hope. I wish I could relieve you of all responsibility for me but I know that is not possible, you will never let me go, no matter how hopeless. We can keep on this same path hoping and searching for answers, but that is just wasting what precious years you have left only to find at the end that I was irreparable, just like I said.

The other night I read to you the list of things Dave and I had decided at my last session.

Number 1 on my list was: No major life decisions.

According to him I can't make decisions until I make peace with myself. Until I get rid of the self-loathing, the self-hatred and the negative self-talk.

Supposedly I can come to a place of embracing and liking who I am. A place where I am who I am, I am OK as I am and I have value. It is at that place that I will be qualified to decide where I go from here and who I choose to go with me.

I don't believe that day is coming.

As I see it we can continue to limp on and believe for better or we can admit failure while there is still time, and start over. Neither is easy. Both seem to be "damned if you do” and “damned if you don't” solutions.

I don't know if this letter is going to make things easier or more difficult on you. Seeing you suffer in doubt and confusion, watching you struggle to fix the unfixable is horrible. I know if it is horrible for me to watch and be the cause of, it is equally horrible for you to endure.

I hate to just dump all this and leave with no solutions and seemingly no hope, but this is all I have. I don't expect answers from you. I don't expect anything. I will be the same empty shell whether I stay or whether I go. I am sorry. With all my heart I am so very sorry.

Just one final note. With all you have to sort through and the impossibility of this situation I want you to know that you are not to blame. Never blame yourself. I was broken when you got me, and now I am shattered. Shattered things cannot be repaired. It is what it is.

Also, no matter what the outcome I will never take my life. I wish I could, but I never will. I say this so that whatever choices you make in the future you will make without the fear of driving me over the edge. I am already over the edge. Somehow I am a survivor. I can move on.

Staying or moving on will not change the fact of who I will be for the rest of my life. I will always be broken. I would like to spare you and our children a continuation of the past year and a half. I can't make that decision for you. I just think I owe you the truth and the freedom to choose without guilt and without a lifetime of wondering “what if I hadn't given up on her".

As I see it you wouldn't be giving up on me, you would be choosing to salvage your life and the lives of our family.

With love and sincerity, Elle

 I'm sorry for the length. It takes more than a little space to try and convince someone to let you go after a lifetime of holding on.

He responded. Loving, supportive, never failing. He never changes.

I changed. I had hoped to redeem that change by being a butterfly. I wanted to emerge from this cocoon of death beautiful and ready for flight.

I changed. But there is no butterfly here. 

I changed. But I am still a square peg and he is still trying to cram me in a round hole.


I'm going to listen to some Norah Jones and wish desperately for several glasses of wine to take me away. But I won't drink it. It's not worth the fight.
Surely the "Long Day" of my life will soon be over.
I'm begging for mercy, elle


"The Long Day Is Over" Norah Jones
http://youtu.be/od3UdXkPjsw
(this video is awesome. watch the sun set over the water.)