Separating After 10 years is Hard to Do.

Yes. You read the title of the blog post correctly, I am leaving my husband after almost ten years of marriage and being together almost eleven years.  We both have some issues we need to deal with, but I have been unhappy and trying to tell him about my feelings for almost five years now.  I can no longer live in the life I have been living. Hiding my fear, frustration, sadness, and anger at how I have become withdrawn, so no one would notice anything was wrong.  I was wrong in assuming that no one noticed anything different.  Everyone has noticed that  I have become a different person.

I am no longer the happy go lucky, full of life, able to make friends, person that I was when I met my husband.  Systematically, I have been more and more isolated from my family and friends.  I have chipped away pieces of myself so much to fit the mold that I was expected to fit, that I had gotten to the point that I no longer recognized myself.

This is my decision, not my husband's and it does break my heart to hurt him.  But, if one refuses to listen, and one refuses to acknowledge they have issues as well, but instead shuts you down and turns you off over and over and over when you want to discuss the issues, What other choice do you have?

At the end of the day, I must do what is healthy and sane for myself.  Yes, I know I need to put in some work and deal with the aftermath of my decision.  But I am truly not a bad person.  I am in the process of pieceing my life back together and it is a long process but I am enjoying the freedom I have found.  I have to heal physically and mentally.  I have to be stronger to get to the other side and along the way I may make some new friends and lose some old friends.

I do ask that everyone do this for me:  If you are friends with both of us, I will not ask you to pick sides.  If you can be an adult and refrain from bashing one of us to the other, then we can still be friends.  If not, then as much as it pains me, you must remove me as your friend.