Marriage Thoughts

I really want to post something here, but I'm not sure how to put it into words.

I'm frustrated. I'm confused. I'm very much looking inside myself and doing some deep, deep soul-searching. I'm trying to give my marriage the very serious consideration that it deserves.

It makes me very sad to realize that while I love W on a certain level, and care about his well-being, I am not in love with him anymore nor do I particularly like him or at least certain things about him. I almost laugh at the "not in love" comment as I have been one of those people who would say to others when they would say that about the spouse they were leaving "But if you still love him/her isn't that enough? Can't you work on getting back the in love part?" Now I struggle with those very questions. Is it enough? It doesn't feel like it right now. Yet, I hate to leave W as I feel it would devastate him, and I don't know that he has enough of a support system around him to help him through it. I wonder if it is fair to me, or to him, to stay and put up the pretense of being a loving wife in the hope that somehow if I act the part eventually I will feel the part again, too. I wonder if it is fair not to do so.

I feel like such a hypocrite when W says, "I love you," and I reply, "I love you, too." I wonder if the words ring truer to him when I say them than they do to me. They sound hollow to me. Yet I fear if I stop saying them, it will let him in on my dirty little secret -- that I am struggling to love him these days.

I watched Dr. Phil the last two days. They were both reruns, and I had seen both of them before. However, the topics were dead on in terms of what I'm going through right now. One was on renewing friendships with old flames. W and I agreed that Dr. Phil really missed the boat when he failed to mention how dangerous it can be, particularly if the marriage isn't rock solid. The other one was on couples trying to decide whether to reconcile or divorce. At one point, Dr. Phil told a couple the following: "You know you're ready to get a divorce when you have no unfinished emotional business. When you can get up and walk out the door and say, 'I'm done. I'm not mad. I'm not glad. I'm not hurting. I've turned over every stone. I've investigated every potential avenue of rehabilitation. I've done everything I can.' That's when you're ready." Well, I'm certainly not at that point right now, but I do feel like I'm approaching that point.

This may sound weird, but I would love to have the following arrangement with W. We would sell our house and buy two condos in the same complex, or perhaps a duplex, where we could each maintain our own home and lead lives independent of one another, but would still be near enough to help each other. W would continue to care for N during the day as he does now, we would on most days all have dinner together, and N would spend the evening with me and sleep at my place. We would trade off watching N for each other when one of us wanted to go out with friends or on dates. I would help W with remembering to take his meds and keep various appointments. W would help me by running various errands like taking the car in for service. We would do our best not to interfere in each other's lives, allowing each other to have their own social life. This would all work for me, but I fear it would not work well for W. He would not want to live separate lives. Indeed, if he could, he would spend 24/7 with me. I feel smothered.

I know this is just a rambling, incoherent mess of a post. It does pretty much represent the jumbled mess of thoughts I have at this time.