During our marriage, I always felt that my love for you grew every day. It was a feeling I believed we were supposed to feel. But was it really love, or was it what we had become used to? Separating is a learning process, a learning process filled with experiences, we should have been aware of during our marriage. It could have prevented those painful days we are going through. Today, love means something different to me.

We had many happy moments. But I do not think that my love, love as I think of it today, had actually grown for you over time. And I do not think that yours grew for me. There was no other time I loved you more than on the day of our wedding, when you stood next to me and had tears in your eyes.

That was the happiest hour during our marriage, and I felt you were truly happy at that moment. Strangely, the wedding day itself was an emotional mess. It was the first time I was afraid that we could be just too different. Occasionally, I just sat there and watched you for a few moments, chatting with people and dancing. It was the way you moved , the way you talked that made me wonder whether you were ready for marriage. I ignored them because I believed my love for you would make it work. We make catastrophic mistakes and this was one such mistake and even if it meant that I would have to walk out on you, it would have been the right thing to do. Listening to your inner self is something I do much more these days.

I told you a few weeks ago that I believe that you sometimes act like a teenager. You did at the wedding, and you do occasionally now, in my mind. It is something males like in women, we like to see you retaining your youth and keep us up on our feet. But I needed those serious moments, especially when serious decisions needed to be made. And they just weren’t there.

I never knew why I was jealous during the wedding reception and party, why I did not like that you danced with all of my and your friends and ignored me entirely during that day. I understood that you and I had to take care of our guests, but I felt neglected and it was that reason why I did not enjoy that day and I did not feel that it was our day. I felt rejected. About nine years later, I remembered that feeling when we were at a wedding of one of your friends and I missed that closeness and feeling of togetherness to you again. It was an opportunity for you to reunite with your high school friends, with whom you spent the entire day. I let it go, because I felt you were somewhat homesick to that old environment, an environment you had to leave when your parents moved 30 miles away. But even today, I am not sure, if I should have felt hurt that you asked me if you could dance with one of your former boyfriends. I left it up to you, you danced and I had no idea if I should feel hurt or not.

Is it unfair to call you immature? In certain ways, I believe you are. This has become so apparent to me when I compare to you other women that have been alone for some time and are a few years older. They make different decisions based on different thoughts and conclusions. It is an entirely different decision process, a process I can relate to so much more to. I am sure I will write about this further down.

I truly believed at that time, during our wedding, I could make you happy, which, in turn, would make me the happiest man on Earth. It is somewhat confusing to learn and understand that our marriage never was what I thought it was. It did not give me what I wanted, in the end. That our marriage was, with the exception of our children, a waste of both of our time. 14 years thrown away, with the exception of our children. This conclusion is a hard one to swallow. 15% of the time of my life spent with the wrong woman. Not easy to comprehend.

It took me some time to clearly form my thoughts on this, but while I have no regrets of having married you, because it was what I wanted and felt was right at the time, I sincerely feel today that I do not miss anything both of us shared besides our children. It is scary how quickly I was able to forget you. When I look into the past, I see the children and I see me. But I do not see you. I have talked to others about this and it seems to be a common feeling among those who have been hurt in a marriage. When you move on, you can simply erase parts of your memory and it seems to happen automatically. If someone asked me to draw your face today, I would not be able to.

When I see you today, I see a stranger. I have no idea what has become of you, but you are not the person I wanted to be with. You probably see me as a different person as well and separation opens your eyes, in some way. When I last saw you, it reminded me of what a mom at school asked me about you. Someone who wanted to get her child and our son together for a play date apparently for a long time, but was too afraid to talk to you. You always say what a jerk I am and what people say about me and then I talk to people and they tell me this: “She is not very friendly.”

With some distance to you, I could see this when you came out of a friend’s house. While you tell me that I am running around with a “stick-up-your ass”, I saw that in you. You seem to be pretending to be someone else, someone you are not. You seem to be taking care of yourself with expensive clothes, but the rest of you suffers. In a superficial way, I would not be able to go out with you anymore because of that visual you gave me. It is this visual I have of you, this visual seems to stick with me, not those happy memories I should have. I never really cared about how you looked like, I cared about your inside, your heart or what I believed was your heart. Suddenly I do care and I am happy that I learned that I have to care. As superficial as looks are, they are a way of paying respect to your environment and other people. Looking at us in late 2008, we did not pay any respect to each other at all and I feel ashamed of myself when I look at pictures of myself.

Tags: Letters To A Cheating Spouse

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