Fear and Doubt

I had a moment of sad clarity as I saw my husband again last Friday. It was our bi-weekly financial talk and as we tried to relate to each other as individuals he asked me if I had decided if I wanted to get a divorce or just a separation. As soon as I verbally confirmed that, yes indeed, I wanted a divorce a wave of emotions washed over me.

I started to doubt everything I had done up to the point of the discovery of my digression. All of the sudden, I just wanted to erase the progress I had made. To return to my old life, to return to being a wife to my husband. I wanted to erase all of the hurt I had done to him and to myself.

Then another odd emotion gripped me just as those doubts began to fade: Jealousy. I had never been jealous of my husband's attention. For the most part, he never gave me any reason to do so. But that evening, I began to feel jealousy of all the women he will meet, of all the time he will spend with them.

Now I know, that jealousy is a symptom of insecurities of oneself. Curiously, my own fears and doubts gnawed on my own insecurities. Insecurities of failure, of making the wrong decisions, of taking on more than I can handle.

I want to say that it has abetted, but the truth is...is that I'm afraid. Afraid of the unknown, afraid that maybe I really can't make it on my own. And that I threw away my last chances of happiness in a mistaken pursuit of independence.

I have to trust the unknown.

My husband keeps reiterating that he might meet someone who wouldn't approve of his friendship of his ex-wife. And although I think he deserves more than that, I have to accept that he may never accept me as his friend. Of all the things I'm fearful of...it is that possibility.

I have to embrace "failure" and face my fears if I am to learn from my mistakes. The proposition scares me more than being alone.