"isaiah, if this is really where your heart is, then how can you claim to be wholly fighting for your marriage still? and if you can't claim that, then aren't you stepping over the line in a very clear way, regardless of what Valerie's done?"
ahhhh. excellent. that's what i needed. now i feel less like an all-around a-hole, and more like a committed man who has a-holic motivations.
this is the truth: if Valerie hit her head and suffered from an amnesia so perfect that she forgot every bad experience with me, but remembered all the good (in which case she would feel loved, which is the subject of her primary marital complaint / critique), then i would make full use of that opportunity to rebuild our marriage to health and wholeness, forsaking all others (including you, Danica) in heart & mind & action.
i feel that the main obstacle to the health of my current marriage is Valerie's anger, or difficulty with forgiveness, or bitterness, or resentment. even when i do or say loving things, i am rejected or despised in response (even if not immediately, especially if i don't give her everything she asks for when and how she asks for it). thus it becomes all-important that i make her feel loved, not just that i love her... and that is not entirely within my control, especially now. that's why the amnesia hypothetical works: because as long as Valerie feels so negatively toward me, she cannot receive whatever good i come up with. which is fundamentally why i believe the marriage is failing.
even with the amnesia, i predict that the marriage would end up in the same place eventually, due to who Val is at her core... the kind of person who, in the deepest parts of herself, makes decisions based on her feelings, and who feels loved only if she is not refused anything.
but back to the example: if given that kind of opportunity, i would give the marriage the same fighting chance (for my part) that i'd been giving it so far. as things stand now, i do not think i will choose to do this, because of what i perceive to be inevitable failure, which i could also term as my spouse's refusal to change.
my changing is not enough. even if i changed myself past the boundaries of my conscience, in order to give Valerie everything she asked for, all the time, that would not change who she is, and problems would arise once again: really, the same problems. someone who cannot accept refusal (selfishness??) and has so much difficulty giving & receiving grace (no idea what to call that) is, in my opinion, doomed to some degree... and dooming others around her.
~ ~ ~
it would take me awhile to get over you 100%, i think, and i'm not sure our friendship could ever be the same as it was when it was at its best (whenever and whatever that was), but i could do it. my heart does eventually follow my head, as long as my head has a strong foundation of grounded, reasonable confidence. i would be able to put up intangible walls in myself that could help our friendship be comfortably bounded rather than awkwardly restricted.
not that you've ever felt awkwardly restricted. ...have you?
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