So I am currently going through a horrific time and I wanted to find out whether I am the horrible person I am feeling like, or whether I am in fact doing the right thing.
4 years ago I met my SO. It was a pretty whirlwind beginning, we were both young and in the party stage of our life. We enjoyed breaks away and getting drunk, we were crazy in love and moved in within 4 months. I was absolutely besotted, in my eyes he was the most perfect person I had ever encountered.
When I met him, he had a very small circle, a couple of close friends and had pretty much been left by everybody. His family moved abroad when he was 19 and he only saw them once a year. He also had a son who was 2 with an ex he was with for 7 years.
Over the time in our relationship, he made a lot of mistakes. He was aggressive and argumentative. He told lies about his ex and his son, such as where he had been and wouldn’t tell her about us. Eventually he did, and I met his son 9 months later.
I was still head over heels, but a big mistake that started everything was after a drunk argument he went and spent the night at his ex’s. I was so worried as he was depressed at the time I called the police, the whole thing was humiliating. He spent about an hour giving me a hug and telling me he was sorry, but then he expected me to forget all about it and would get angry if I ever brought it up. After that there were other instances. We once had a physical fight, I took him to a friends wedding with work colleagues where he accused me of sleeping with my boss in front of my boss and his wife, more physical fights. It was turbulent, and through this he never accepted responsibility or saw any wrong doing. There was lots more things over about an 18 month period, all of which I hid from friends and family as I was so desperate to protect him. I was fiercely loyal and absolutely blinded by love. Every mistake he made, I never dealt with properly, I never stood up for myself and just brushed it under the carpet.
Then it was like something in him flipped, we stopped drinking together, and he cut some toxic people out of his life. His career sky rocketed, he became caring, considerate and just generally a better person. By this time, I knew in my head something wasn’t right. The desire I once felt for him had just dwindled away, I no longer looked at him with the love I had for him. I was sure it was a phase but this had been going on for 9 months-ish. We had sex but it was more of a task that I had to do than I ever wanted to, I found myself wanting to spend more and more time away, in turn he grew jealous and knew something was up. Eventually after a couple of rows, earlier in this week I revealed to him exactly how I felt, I love him dearly but am no longer in love with him.
I had argued in my head for months before, I felt as though I was in a catch 22, I couldn’t leave him, as he had no one but at the same time I can’t stay with him for the rest of my life when I don’t love him in the right way. He deserves someone who does look at him the way I did at the beginning, and now he has grown he is literally going to make someone the perfect husband I know he will.
I have made my mind up, but this is where it’s so difficult. He is begging me to give it another chance, crying, has write pages and pages of why we shouldn’t give up, booked days out for us and wants us to go visit his family next week which would mean 2 weeks away. He’s saying what have we got to lose by trying, but now he has become overly affectionate, and I just literally can see his heart break every day when I reject him. It’s literally killing me, I can’t bare to hurt him but I can’t bare the thought of staying and looking back on my life in 20 years knowing I had the chance to go.
I know in my heart that these feelings aren’t going to come back, but he is saying to do the holiday anyway and he is under no false hope but he wants to know we tried everything. It’s been 5 days since I told him, I can’t eat or sleep through the feeling of guilt, and I don’t know if I can do this for another 6 weeks or so.
With Christmas literally next week, I just don’t know that I can turn the 2 weeks away down, he wants to go the day after and if I tell him no he will be spending Christmas alone, so do I just grin and bare it to get through the festive period?