6/8/2004 11:36:38 AM|||Amy|||I am at work, and trying hard to keep working. I have a thousand little tasks to complete, and one or two larger projects. My email isn't downloading to the email program I use, and my desk is in full hurricane mode. I am ambivalent. In order to feel productive, and thus guiltless, I am performing tasks at random whilst trying not to ignore the needs of the projects. The problem is what the problem always is. My office is very quiet, and I have too much time to think.

The more I think about it, the more certain I am that my feelings for my husband may still include love, but not a strong enough love to make me re-think the certainty of our divorce. I have not wronged him in any way that he has not wronged me. The last few years have been marked by struggles of trust and emotional abandonment. Our marriage was never very strong. As I said before, it never matured - which is essential for a long term relationship.

I want to say that I feel very badly about our irresponsibility in bringing three children into a doomed union, but I feel to say that is to somehow imply that I regret. I regret nothing, except perhaps that I married John against my better instincts in the first place.

I am searching for the strength to clean up this mess, to give my children more orderly, happier lives. I am sad though. Sad that my own childhood dreams of what my life would be like as an adult didn't happen, sad that I am about to put my children in emotional jeopardy as they stand on the sidelines and watch their father and I split up, sad that I am not at all interested in calling in all the king's men to put this marriage back together.

When I remember moments from our relationship, I can think of a few happy times, a lot of negative times. I mostly remember feeling that if I wanted him for sex or a simple conversation that didn't include divergent viewpoints, then I could have that. However, if I wanted him to be a good, consistent father and partner, I was on my own. I feel sad about that too - that I didn't do all of this sooner.

|||108671415880551155|||The Downswing