I kept busy for the next 6 months.  Between school, my dog and my workouts, my days were somewhat full.  And I still spent hours talking to my friends,  particularly some of the women I met at the Take your Life Back retreat in Dallas. 

Crazy thing was, I still wanted my husband back.  There was so much craziness going on in my mind.  I couldn’t think straight when it came to him and our marriage.  I wanted my life to go back the way it was.  For us to be a couple again. I am not sure what was the reasoning behind this strong desire to get him back.  I didn’t know if I was still in love with him.  And honestly, began to question if I ever was. 

I met him my freshman year in college, right before my 19th birthday.  We became good party friends, and had a lot of fun together.  We dated for 6 years before we got married.  When he proposed, we were skiing in Western New York.  It was right before Christmas.  We were staying in Jamestown, NY.  With the snow and lights, it looked like something out of a Norman Rockwell picture.  We had been skiing that evening.  We had a few drinks.  Being the romantic guy he was, he said I have something for you, and tossed me over the ring box.  Looking back, this should have been a HUGE sign.  But we had dated for so long, that I didn’t think twice and said yes. 

When my dad passed away a few years later and I started going to a therapist, she told me my husband and I were living like roommates, and not intimate partners.  Though I remember the words clearly, I again decided not to give them any more thought. 

Then there was also fear of being on my own.  How could I ever make it alone?  Funny thing was, I often thought about the more superficial parts of being in a relationship.  Like having someone to travel with and go out to eat with.  Someone to help hang pictures and help around the house and yard.  To have sex with when you want.  Not the deep intimate part of the relationship.  Because this is what I knew relationships to be.  People who live together, are part of a family, and “love” one another, but are never truly intimate, sharing their souls and deepest secrets.  Being what Dr. Phil has called “a safe place to fall.”  I wasn’t taught that from my family, and I don’t believe he was either.  So I did later see how the fear of being on my own was for some pretty screwed up reasons.  Fortunately.  And I now know what I am looking for in an intimate partner.  But that fear was there, and it was very real.

And one more thing.  I didn’t want her to have him or for her to win.  I felt like I was in a competition for my husband’s affection.  He was mine first, he took marriage vows to me, I wanted him.  I tried so many things to win him back.  Listened to so much advice, to people telling me to do or be or say this and he will want me and not her.  But he never did. 

I did connect with one woman in particular at the seminar.  Her husband cheated, they divorced, and she is creating a life that she loves.  Even though I wanted him back, it wasn’t happening, so I reached out to Gayle Rudd, and I began coaching with her.  In the first conversation we had, when I was still whining about him, she said “he dis-honored you and dis-respected you.  Is that how you want to be treated?”

That was a lightbulb moment for me.  No I did not.  I am better than that, deserve better than that.  And it was at that point that I knew I would have to file for divorce, for my own sanity and self-respect.