But you see my ex-husband (yes, feels very weird to call you that), I still want you. I still long for us to be together. I miss you so much that I feel sick inside. Our marriage was not a joke to me. It was not a tragedy that is now done. It is a tragedy that is still happening. How can I go on without you here? I miss your gentle kindness and soft touches. I miss snuggling in our bed. How can it be that after all those years of marriage I lay in bed alone every night, holding my pillow instead of you? You see really, I don't want to "move on". I just want to be with you. I want you to get better. I want you to be the man I know you are capable of being. I want your arms around me. I feel that sitting here for another moment without feeling your arms around me will make me melt into nothingness.

Why didn't it work out? Why didn't you try harder? If my trying would have been enough by itself, our marriage would have lasted. But it required you to try too. What did you do to try to save our marriage? NOTHING. You made my life miserable and hard and difficult. And right now I hate myself because I still love you and would take you back in a heartbeat. All I want more than anything in this world is to feel your arms around me. I feel that I can not bear another night alone. Months go by tediously.

Why is my heart so wounded and you can move along so easily? Why is this easier for you? Probably because you never tried as hard as I did. I invested more in the relationship than you ever did. Our marriage, for you, was always about you and what could be done for you. For me, the marriage was also about you and what could be done for you. I poured myself out for you...there is very little left for me. When you spend so much time trying to love someone, help them, fix them, be the kind of wife to them that you think God would want you to be....and when that is your life for 10 years in a row, it cannot be easily done away with. What did you ever do for us, for me, to try to make it work? All you cared about was your comfort and your circumstances moment by moment, giving me little morsels of time and attention....just enough to keep me craving more. It's the same way you would treat a dog that you didn't care about very much.

I came to see you during our separation...still hoping for the reconciliation....I felt right to be by your side have your arm wrapped around my waist. It felt good to sit by you on the couch, sit across from you in the restaurant, sit next to you in the car. It felt normal and good and "where I belonged". I walk around now, a half person, missing such a piece of me. that can never be found, never be satiated. Hold my hand! Look in my eyes! All I've ever wanted and cared about is you! If you had half as much love for me, we would still be together. You never tried to understand me or to learn what would be good for me. You never tried to think about what a good husband would be or do in every day things. You never put the effort into the relationship...all your efforts were self-dircted towards your latest whim. Most of the time, that meant the computer.

So tonight I will go lay in that big queen-sized bed. The bed that you brought me home to after our wedding....yes, with the same comforter on it still. The bed where we made love too many times to count. The bed where we cried, fought, laughed, talked, snuggled. The bed where you scratched my back so many times and I slept with my back to yours. The bed that moved from apartment to house to house to apartment. Now I sleep alone in it. Right now I would do anything to have you by my side once more. But you are fine. It's all okay with you. You will replace me with someone else...and everything that I tried and did won't matter. And you know what? It isn't fair. No. It's not fair. I am the one that got ripped off. I am the one that got screwed. I am the one who gave my heart away and cannot find it again. You still have my heart....that is why I still love you.

[submitted 06/22/03]