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PaperclipPerfector  15d ago (text post)   1954 thread views

Small-Scale Question Sunday for June 28, 2026

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Repeatedly doubling down on what's clearly a losing bet; wagering more and more of my soul each time and seeing it swept off the table, did much more lasting damage than I could appreciate at the time, and it's taken years to heal. On some level it was correct to do. On another level I wonder if I was just stubbornly trying to prove some sort of point -- if it was vanity instead of love. In which case whom can I blame but myself?

Yeah I haven't responded to this yet because Things are Happening and this particular line hits home, because it's so true for me. I was trying to prove a point to my wife: that she was lovable for who she was. And as much as I'd like to think that I kinda sorta got through on some level, I think there's Way Too Much Going On for me to ever be able to truly help, and in fact she's explicitly told me that she doesn't want to deal with her own obvious and glaring issues that she is, in fact, aware of. As much as I hate being the Identified Perpetrator in a relationship, I'm pretty clear at this point that being in this role at least some of the time is non-negotiable, and between that and my previous sentence, I feel like that old Chinese military guy whose soldiers are late to the battlefield.

I was surprised when my (Orthodox) priest told me to get divorced. They're not prone to that, you know? I objected, "But, as a Christian husband, isn't it my job to die on the cross for my wife?" He said "Yes, and you've done that, and now it's time to do something else."

Still didn't believe him until I went to a monastery and the hieromonk there (even more hardcore than a priest) said the same thing, and also that it wasn't about me, it was about my child, and that my new mission in life was to find a better mom for said child. That got through to me. I was only once I was doing it for someone else that the path became clear.

Only cats in my case, but I've otherwise received pretty consistently similar feedback in the sense that it isn't on me and trying harder is just going to burn me out worse. And after four and a half years of being on and off the rocks, I think I'm as ready as I'm going to be to take the L and move on.

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