As you wish he said....

My heart breaks a little when I look at the side of this blog and I see my explanation of who I am "Mother to 3 amazing children, wife to one amazing man...as you wish he said". This is how I defined myself, and my marriage. My wants and my needs and my husband true to form was there. I did feel like a princess. Cared for and coddled.
"You don't want to drive to work tonight?" he would say.
"No it looks like snow, I don't want to drive in the snow" I would say.
"of course I will drive you" he would say.
And it sounds sweet and lovely that a husband would do that for his wife. Looking closer at it...my husband had worked all day, he would come home and start supper because I needed to sleep for the night shift. He would see the kids for 5 minutes and then drive all the way back into town. Then he would come home and get them off to bed. I never stopped to consider what an inconvenience this was for the rest of my family. I never stopped to think that maybe he missed the kids after having worked all week and that he just wanted to spend time with them. I never took into consideration his thoughts or feelings on the matter because "as you wish" was what I heard.
He never said no to me. My wants and needs always came first. But I said no plenty of times emphatically, loudly NO! Looking back I am hard pressed to find a time when the situation was reversed. In fact looking back I can see how easy it was for me to let him take care of me and my wants and needs and to deny his.
My husband is leaving me for another woman but I am soooo culpable in the demise of my own marriage, I can't breathe sometimes. I don't like the person I became and I can't believe how easy it became to dismiss someone else's feelings, someone that I loved so very much.
In the beginning his level of love for me was off the charts as was mine for him. He was my best friend and my soul mate. Somewhere a long the way we lost sight of each other. We stopped seeing the other person whom we had originally fallen in love with. I trusted that he would always be there while he was silently having hurt after hurt piled on top of him and never saying a word.
This marriage ending is sad because it could have been something beautiful and wonderful. We could have been a forever marriage but we let the reigns go. I let the reigns go. I did not tend my marriage or show my husband compassion when he needed it most. He is walking away and for the first time I am not saying "No". I am letting him go. I am putting his needs above my own. I am being the person I use to be.
"As you wish" is a fairytale. It is not real life.