This is a letter I somewhat copy and change from a book I read ,to send to my Wife the week before the final divorce medation,, My lawyer told me not to send it because it doesn't matter to her, it help me to get it off my chest.
Dear Wife
This is a letter that is probably long past due.
I’ve been through some very tough times since you decided to leave me, as you know. At first, I didn’t want to face the possibility of a life without you. To a man like me who expected to marry only once and to remain committed for life, it is an enormous and emotionally severe shock to see our relationship and our family come so unraveled.
So many people have advised me to “let go! Of you, and move on that it’s finally sinking in. It’s curious how a person loses perspective by being so close to a problem. It becomes difficult to see issues clearly. But in the last few months, I’ve been able to pull back a little bit from all this and see things in a new light. God has called me to peace. If someone wants to go, LET THEM GO!
After much soul-searching and prayer, I want you to know that you are free from me, and I am free from you. This will be my declaration of independence in as firm but as loving a manner as I can say it.
Wife,do you remember that night? March 25, 2011 that you told me you wanted a divorce? Well, that was a night I will never forget. You told me that you love me but you where not in love with me and that you needed space and you felt trapped in our marriage and you just had to be free. Do you remember the next day we talked about things? I asked you about various options. I asked you not to do this on our Son, Senior yr; I ask could we work things out? Could we go to a counselor? Was a trial separation possible? You said no to everything. You wanted out!
Against the advice of virtually everyone, however, I became passive and tried to appease you because I loved you so much, I offered to do many things to help you during our separation because I worried about you and I loved you. But now I think I made a big mistake in doing all this and I have paid a huge price for doing that.
As I look back over the past 2 years, I can see how I have reacted with panic and desperation. I have begged. I have pleaded. I have tried to hold onto you, but now I see how much of a doormat I have made of myself in doing all this
Wife,you married me of your own free choice. I did not force you to do it, it was a decision you made to respect and honor me as your mate without pressure from me, and I married you of my own free will, to love and honor and respect you also. That’s what made it so special to me. But now there is no mutual respect and admiration. There is no mutual acceptance. There’s absolutely nothing I can do about this and to be honest, I have to let you go. I cannot force you to stay now, any more that I could have forced you to marry me many years ago. And now with your feelings for me being what they are, I can see how I have been losing my own self-respect and compromising my own self-esteem in pursuing you. While my real crime over the past 24 months is probably in loving you too much, after you walked out on me, the punishment that this has wrought on my psyche is not healthy for me as a person or a man. Well, I am tired of expending enormous emotional and physical energy and sending it on a one-way trip in your direction. It’s depleting me, and it’s very wrong, like it says in Matthew 7:6 “Do not give to dogs what is Holy and do not throw your pearls before pigs! They will trample the pearls, then turn and attack you”.
As everything comes into clearer focus for me, here are things I need to share with you to break free out of this relationship for me;
FREEDOM. That’s a precious thing. While we were married to each other, I didn’t own you and you didn’t own me. I cannot and have not every deprive you of your freedom. I have never told you what you could or could not do, or tell you that you could not go anywhere ,you ever wanted to go at anytime, I did not deprive you of your freedom,,
DIVORCE. This is not what I wanted for us or our family. Divorce has never been an option for me, but starting today I am going to be totally honest with friends and relatives who ask about you. If they ask how you are or if I have seen you, I will tell them I do not know anything about you anymore and I will always tell them this is not my divorce and I have never agree to it or wanted it. And that it was your decision to abandon the marriage and break up the family
As for any friendship between us after the divorce, I’m sorry, but there’s just no way. I cannot handle that. When the door closes on our marriage, as it is doing now, it is over, Pure and simple. When the divorce is finalized, I am going to do my best to forget you were ever in my life. I have to. It’s just too painful otherwise. I love being married. I enjoy being a husband. If you don’t want a married life with me, I have faith, that the Lord will work in my life and show me what’s best. If you do not want me, then I believe and trust that the Lord will bring someone in my life, who will love me and I will love them
BOUNDARIES: We never had boundaries with each other, we should have.
I feel like I have made my life an open book to you and put all my cards on the table. I have spoken my heart to you and told you exactly how I feel. I feel you have been somewhat open about certain things, but for the most part you’ve held your cards close to your chest. I feel you have been evasive, mysterious and deceptive. I don’t know what you’re doing with your life. I have no idea, who you spend your time with or whether you even read your bible, because if you did, you would have read that this divorce is wrong. And God hates divorce .But you know all those things about me. I have tolerated this double standard for too long. I guess I just loved you so much that I was willing to do anything you demanded, just to keep you from leaving me.
I have heard your complaints from everyone, about how I am not taking care of you, and being unfair, I did what I thought was right when you first left me, by giving you money and paying for everything, and whatever else you needed, I did too much for my own good. But you are on your own now. You have put me out of your life. You should do the responsible thing now and take care of yourself, you may have problems, but that is the way you will have to live your life and this is what you wanted anyway, your decision, and your choice. If it’s any consolation, my feeling is that my life and emotions have been torn up a whole lot worse, then anything you will ever experience.
We absolutely must set boundaries and get our lives untwined from each other. Therefore, please do not call me or text me, except to the extent you need to tell me something about our children or grandchildren and they cannot get in touch with me, don’t visit me. Don’t do anything for me. I won’t contact you either, unless it’s about something you need to know about the children or grandchildren, I expect my key back, I will forward all your mail that comes to the house, till you put in a change of address. You will not see me and I will not see you.
I am going to take all the pictures of you and me together at home and put them in a safe place. The things you left behind at the house are going into storage, until you pick them up in a reasonable time frame after this divorce. There will be no more “love gifts” or help from me. We are going to live our lives totally separate, if we are not going to be married anymore.
COUNSELING. I have never regretted getting counseling. We both were long overdue. But from the very beginning, you made it very clear that you do not need counseling and nothing ever change that feeling. I on the other hand. Came for counseling and marriage counseling and for reconciliation if possible. While I have learned a lot with the help of a counselor, and also realized this marriage could be healed, I also learned it takes two people wanting the same thing and you never did. If you ever change your mind let me know, if you don’t, I am ok.
TRUST. When you told me that you wanted a Divorce, and that “You LOVED ME BUT WASN’T IN LOVE WITH ME ANYMORE”, I had to Google that meaning, to really get an understanding what it really means. And after countless phone calls and visit from others that know you and me, really, really well and listening to what others told me from church about you and what really is happening, and after doing some investigation, I lost all trust in you. Up until that time, I trusted you 100 percent. I never checked up on you. I took you at your word. I wasn’t perfect, but I never violated your trust by getting involved with anyone else, since I pledged myself to you. I feel that you have violated my trust and broken faith with me in our marriage. Nothing that I have done to offend you—nothing—could ever justify this action or this divorce. It became a whole new situation when this happened.
if I am no longer special to you, then I’m just one of the crowds. Actually, I’m a little less than others in the crowd because you know me, and all the others are always going to appear more mysterious and exciting. Well I cannot live with that. If you think you can go and find a person who loves God and loves you more then me, then go. That is between you and the Lord.
This letter is no power play on my part. I’m not playing games. This is no bluff. I am being honest so that I can live with myself and have a good night’s sleep once again. There are limits to what I can tolerate, and I’m way over my limit already in this manner. I have been pushed, prodded, tested, abused; ask to leave the church and transfer my membership, dismissed from a job and the worst, not being called or being there when our grandchild was born, and also when she was baptize and both of those was very important to me as a daddy and granddaddy. I have had my self-esteem assaulted enough. I am through with trying to chase after you. You’re going to be history very quick and that is exactly what you want.
I am not perfect, but neither are you, that fact is I have always loved you, no matter what you did or didn’t do, but you are rejecting me. Of course, that is your choice in exercising your free will and your freedom, and independence and one day you will have to answer God for what you are doing, and what you have done, either in this life or the next. The bottom line is that if we cannot accept each other as Christ does each of us, then it is best for you to go. I am absolutely, positively through preaching at you, pulling after you, pinning away for you, being passive, and trying to appease you and everyone else.
This entire experience has been painful beyond belief—a real nightmare! But I’m going to make it. I’m going to sleep deeply through the night once again without worrying about you. The Lord has been with me this far, and He’ll go with me in the future.
You and I have had some wonderful, exciting and precious times together and I would not take anything for them. But those times are gone. I will continue to pray for you. I trust God will guide you in the years ahead. But I am making no promises beyond what I have already made and agree too. Now I’m going to do everything possible to remove you from my life and stop punishing myself for what’s happened. It’s not going to be easy. You were my special love---my only love. You were the only one I’ve ever wanted in my life, and I will trust God to bring someone else into my life, when He feels the time is right, I will wait on Him, and His love and Grace for me. I loved you from the very first day and have always loved you. I have been proud to call you my wife, my friend and partner. But that was then, and this is now, God bless you!!! I have forgiven you for what you have done and I will miss you!!!!
starrett
Things I would like to say to my spouse [remember the unconditionals!]
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