The Ultimatum

So, during our last trip, Sandy delivered an ultimatum to me -- choose to stay or go. What do you say to that? I wasn't completely resolved about whether to stay or go, because I do love my wife. It's not as though I don't enjoy spending time with her most of the time. Yet, the demand required a response... there was no way out of it.

Her reasoning behind it was sound, I guess. She said that she "didn't want to see us keep dragging things out. Either we would work on moving forward together or apart." There is a fair amount of truth to that, mostly because of me. Why? Because I've been very scared. I don't want to give up much of what I value about the life I have for a (future) life that I know nothing about. The level of confront on this is almost off the scale for me.

I have been asking myself what seems to be a fairly simple question:

What do I need to consider to be able to make a clear choice one way or the other?

That's not a lighthearted question. It's serious stuff. The answer to it will affect the entire rest of my life. Literally. I want to take the time to think through it and make sure that I am not acting impulsively. At the same time, this isn't a one way street, is it? It's not all about me. Not even close. Sandy has a part in this. Sally has a part in this. So, once I've had a chance to think through what I need to think about, there's also what they think about it. I can't (and won't) ignore that. To do so would be irresponsible of me. That's the last thing I want.

Life also has something to say about this too. Just because I want something doesn't mean that I deserve it or I am going to get it. It could turn out that my timing is completely off and I'll fall flat on my face. These are the risks of what I stand in front of. There's no way to be certain how anything is going to turn out, except the certainty of staying stuck. Of course, given the actions I've taken, staying stuck now is no longer an option... if it ever really was one.

Given I could not come up with a flat footed answer to Sandy, it seemed to me like the best thing to do was to start working on the basis of our splitting up. It's not neutral. As such, I am not unhappy with the direction, but remain unsure. I'll probably stay unsure about this. I don't know. One thing is for sure, I can't work out how it's going to go in advance. There's no reasonable path for predicting how all of this is going to go, such that I "feel good" about the choice.

Indeed, Sandy asked me yesterday "are you sure about splitting up?". My reply was "that's the wrong question to ask me, because I am not sure about anything right now!". Indeed, this cuts to the heart of the matter, doesn't it. I am not sure about anything. The core issue here isn't as much about Sandy per se, as it is about who I know myself as AND who we are as a couple that is done.

The foundation that our relationship was built upon was great for a certain period of time and then started to rot in place. OK. Perhaps the analogy is a little strong for the reality of it, but it's not all that far off. We had established a certain relational foundation that had many assumptions that fit for our development at a specific point in time. We've since each moved on from there, but the relational foundation never got updated. It's not like we didn't try either. It turns out that there's enough of a discrepancy between who we were then and now that it just needed to be dismantled -- fixing it was not an option.

As far as I go, I recognize that I am at a point in my life where I don't know who the heck I really am. I married Sandy in my early 20's. I never really lived much of "my own life" before marrying her. Once we got together, I started to become more about "us" than to really explore the question of who I am. Now, I don't think that these are mutually exclusive by any means. Still, the fact was that I abandoned that investigation and threw myself into "us". That's part of that relational foundation that needed to be dismantled.

Right now, coming up with an answer to the question of "who am I and what do I want out of life?" IS the question to be resolved. Until I can answer that with some degree of precision, I really cannot authentically say yes to either stay or go. That's been the core issue for me. Unfortunately, the ultimatum doesn't leave much room for exploration. Here's hoping some concentrated effort can get things rolling.