3 years.......

I remember writing 3 years ago that I had found the man of my dreams......how he made my heart skip beats, how I lost my breath around him.  How I could look at him all day and never get tired of the way he looked....

Today- I can honestly say I am a broken woman.  I have tried and failed.  Tried and failed.  Tried and failed....tried and given up.

I feel empty most of the time, like I am always on the verge of tears.  Like I want to sleep the rest of this marriage away,  I don't want anyone else, but God forgive me- I don't want this.

I go to Al-Anon meetings......in secrecy.  So that I can figure out who I am again.  Behind this person I have created that is longing for love.  3 years, I am not the person I want to be, I am not the person I thought I would be, not the person I planned to be.  I am an empty shell of the person I am supposed to be.

I hide behind this smile and pretend it is all ok, when inside I am rotting away.  I cannot explain the loneliness I have felt in this relationship - I gave my heart to this man and he just put it in his pocket, and doesn't take care of it.  In the same pocket, on top of me are his addictions, his impulses, himself, and I am just weighted down in the bottom.  I can't breathe down here.

So what has this 3 years done for me?  It has robbed me of my happiness, my sanity, my security and my life.  I thought for sure 3 years would mean something, but it means nothing, just another date to write down, it is not sentimental, it holds no value.  It is just another day in hell.

Lonely.

and that is what it has become.  2015 I made a resolution to love my husband for the man that he is and not the man that I want him to be.

However, after falling asleep last night distant because lets face it going on almost 60 days without a hint of physical intimacy and remembering that it has only happened 2 times in the last 7 months is a lot to swallow.  I thought a lot last night.  I thought about our argument on Christmas and how he had gotten so drunk he didn't help me at all put out our presents for the kids, and then on Christmas day the cycle continued and he passed out at 7:30pm.  I thought about the talk we had about drinking and how his words burned into my brain:

"I think it would be wrong of you to ask me not to drink anymore"

My response was "I never asked you that"

But looking at my take on it is OK I never asked him not to drink, and it would be wrong of me to ask that of him, however he expects me to live my everyday without intimacy which is obviously ranking in the same department alcohol is to him.

We are rounding 3 years and I don't know what to do.  I am trying to be the wife he wants, but the husband I want went away a long time ago, never to return.

I am trying.  God knows that I am trying.  But it is hard, it is unfair and it is like I am not in a marriage at all, I am in a single household with a man who doesn't want to love me.  He says he loves me, we will even make plans to be intimate, but the follow through is never there.

I just want to cry all of the time.

But I don't I am much too strong for that, I will not let this battle among the many others that I have fought break me.  I deserve to be loved the way I want to be loved, and this I know.

One day I am going to wake up and realize this is not the life I want.  One day I am going to realize that my butterflies don't have to be dead and I am going to have the strength to awaken them like never before.  One day this will all just be a dream and I will be able to obtain what I want.

Until then it is a mystery on how to get that.

I love my husband with all of me and I don't want anyone else, but where does that leave me if everything I want is from a person who will never be able to give it to me..... A person who doesn't care to meet my needs.  A person who believes his needs are the only ones that are important, and thinks it is wrong for me to take away his needs, but thinks it is wrong for me to want for mine.....