24/1/2014 @ 7.03 pm

R

I have made many mistakes from the day we met until today.  

These mistakes are 100% my fault.  You have nothing to do with any of them.  I am the only one to blame for having done wrong in our relationship. 

My first mistake is in not loving you for who you are and my second mistake is in taking your needs for granted.  For much of our relationship, I have been much too insensitive to you as a person and your needs, and cared only about myself and my needs.  I snuffed out the only 2 things you needed in our marriage - a voice, your voice; and your self. 

We have rarely communicated or shared our thoughts and emotions, hopes and fears.   Or rather, I pushed my thoughts and emotions on you and made them yours, without once straining myself to understand your thoughts and emotions.  This has hurt our relationship and kept us from growing closer; and also reinforced your deep fear that our relationship might have been a mistake from the beginning.  If I told you now, you would not believe that I too desire a relationship where we as two people come from a place of unconditional love and encounter the other regularly – in body, mind and spirit – and to create a deep bond where we are free to express ourselves over anything, and to share exclusive moments of honesty and vulnerability.  I know that my insensitivity and selfishness have caused you great frustration, deep hurt and pained loneliness.  I have also been unduly harsh and abusive toward you, ironically these were times when you sought to verbalise your concerns toward me and I failed miserably to listen to you with a husband's patience and understanding and instead I acted callously by flaring up on you.  I never meant to deprive you of your voice in this relationship - I don't really know what went wrong but right in the start of our relationship, it has always been your voice and your thoughts - and the privilege you gave me to allow me to hear and share in your thoughts - that attracted me to you and made me feel special.  Even now, that is most of what I am missing (and feeling lost without it).  For my neglect of your soul, I am sorry and I ask for your forgiveness.

I have not been a good sexual partner toward you.  I know physical affection, touch and sex are important to you, and I have been anything but loving toward you in this area.  I have deprived you many times of physical affection, touch and sex, and yet expected you to satisfy me of my physical desires.  I allowed my own broken-ness and selfish reasons (pornography, snoring, gaming, fatigue, performance anxiety, low self-esteem) to avoid sex, sometimes entirely without knowing, even when I should have known that the respectful act was to have confessed and share my vulnerability with you, and to seek help.  I allowed apathy to fester in my mind and to justify the unjustifiable lack of physical intimacy and my selfish reasons for not satiating you sexually.  I can’t imagine how my persistent rejection of your body has devasted your sense of worth and confidence, or how sexually frustrated I made you feel each time I deflected my guilt in this area by refusing to discuss my issues with you and worse,  by demanding that it was you who needed to change for me when I was the one with all the afflictions.   For all my broken-ness and selfish reasons, I too desire physical affection, touch and sex, with you, and honey, I find you - your pretty face, svelt figure and everything about you - exceedingly beautiful.  I am truly sorry that I kept my body from you, and I made you feel undesired.  I hope it is not too late to tell you that my body is not mine, it is yours, and I no longer want to keep it from you.  I am working on myself to cure my snoring and my affliction to pornography and unnatural psyche (a hybridised Madonna-whore complex).  I have already shelved my gaming laptop and intend to use it only if I can find self control.  For my neglect of your body, I am sorry and I ask for your forgiveness.

I have also put work and career ahead of you.  Even though I presented myself physically at home on most nights, I allowed my heart and mind to be on work.  Ultimately, I pursued personal accomplishment and materialism, and I have come to realise that they mean nothing in this life of temporal existence.  Love is the greater goal, and I was in a fog not to realise it earlier (but I do now).  Even if I had all the personal success and money in this world, but no love, I would derive no joy or fulfilment.  Too many times in our relationship, I have not made you feel more important than my quest for personal accomplishment/career, and I know it made you feel minimised, unloved and unvalued.   For my neglect of you as the love of my life, I am sorry and I ask for your forgiveness.

You are more important – way more important – than how I have made you feel during our relationship.     I made you feel secondary to me, a mere housemate, when I should have made you feel like my best friend and my lover.  I was a poor husband, insensitive and apathetic to the core, and I let down all your hopes and expectations placed upon our relationship.  I have hurt you very deeply and I know you probably feel that you cannot trust me again. 

My intent is to do love. 

To improve the soul communication between us, I commit to you that I will spend at least 1 hour a day to speak together.  It could be about anything, really: what happened in our day, our thoughts, our emotions…and whatever else we are prepared to share with the other.  I know that it won’t be easy at first because of all the hurt and stonewalling that has been caused to our bruised egos and pride, and it will take time to get there, but I will learn, persevere and get better at letting you see the real me, and I will see the true you.

To improve the physical intimacy and emotional connection between us, I commit to you that I will learn and strive to show you affection more and more each day.  I know that you may not feel much connection with me now, or even want to, and so I would not push you further away by assuming what you need.  I am willing to go at your pace, depending on how you feel.   You have a voice, and I want you to feel no fear in vocalising your thoughts to me; and I will be receptive, and learn to listen to every word you say.  Where you will let me, I will touch you and hold you, closer and closer as you are comfortable.  Where you are not yet ready to let me, I will be patient and wait for you to be ready to speak to me and invite me to step into your world.  I commit to you that I will not rely on pornography any more.  I too want our intimacy to be pure and unadulterated, and for it to be exclusive and without limitation.  There should be no inhibition or “pedestalising” the other, it should just be honest and bold. 

To deal with my selfish regard for materialism and personal achievements, I commit to you that I will no longer worry about career advancement or personal profit.  I will speak to my bosses in February about taking a substantial time-out from work, so that I can take my mind off the pressure of work and the many deadlines in my job that have caused and continue to cause me much stress and anxiety.  I will also make every effort to be home before 7 pm every day; and where I might be later than 7 pm, I will call you (not text you) and let you know.   Further, I will not answer or check my mobile or blackberry at home, or work from home unless it is absolutely important that I have to – and even then, I will not spend more than 30 minutes on such work.  Money is the root of all evil, and I will expel it from my definition of happiness.

R, I know that there is no reason for you to believe any of what I’m committing to you, after all the hurt and pain I have inflicted on you throughout our relationship.  We’re not close now and our marriage is in (serious) trouble.  I will work on myself and make changes to myself, for myself.  The point is that things are different.  I am not the same; neither are you, nor is the world.  Nothing is.  Existence is a process, not a static state. 

If I can be of any assistance to you, let me know.

P.S.  Hope the writing bug comes back, as I think it does with all creative people who lose their motivation.  (I have always loved your writing.)

With contrition,

CH