My name is Cinci, and I am a 39 year old woman who believes in spirit and God.  I live my life trying to bring peace and goodness with me, and I love animals and believe they are more than we think them to be.  I am a Reiki Master and I believe in learning about other cultures and religions as a way to expand myself and understand our world better.  I am also a high level empath, though often this is a detriment to me as I have not mastered insulating myself from all that I pick up.  I am deeply affected by others pain, and tend to take on the pain myself.

I have always lived my life with love being the most important thing to me.  I have achieved things in my career, but the one thing that mattered to me most was to be a good wife and share love.  I married my best friend 18 years ago..and two years ago everything began a roll downhill.  Circumstances in our life caused major financial strain and within 1 year my husband slipped into a deep depression.  It runs in his family, yet I had to push for him to get help.  He went on medication for a while and things improved, and then because of that he stopped taking the meds.  During the worst of his depression, he began pushing me awayand ultimately told me he was no longer happy with his life in general, including our marriage.  He started to shut down and emotionally he left me.

  He is much better than he was, but he is still in the midst of a depression that he cannot control.  He no longer feels anything for anyone--and this from a man who has spent his life up until now loving and enjoying me and his family more than anything else.  He has always been close to his family, our best friends were his sisterand her husband.  Now he has chosen to have a great distance between himself and everyone he has loved.  He is a very different man and he is lost and admits that--but does not see the answer in medication.

I have done everything I can to hold onto us, I have held on in the face of his not wanting me, believing that when he was better, he would take back the things he had declared.  I have held on for over a year, with no true signals of hope from him, yet he remains my best friend.  We became 2 friends living as roommates.    6 weeks ago we agreed he should move out.  If he couldn't give me love or recommit to me, and I could not accept having a marriage that was only a friendship--we needed to seperate.  I believed in my heart that this would do one of 2 things--shake us up and bring us back together and stronger than ever; or it would make us realize we need to let go and move on.

There has been no shake up on his part.  I miss him terribly.  I love this man with all of my heart, and I know he loves me, but he is not in love with me any longer.  I have spent so much time trying to figure the reasons--but in the end it doesn't matter--you cannot force love.  Neither of us has ever done the typical catastrophic things that ruin a marriage.  So, how am I supposed to let go of someone I love with all of my heart?  How am I supposed to go forward in the process of ending something that I never wanted to lose?  How do I face not having him with me? 

I do not know how to handle this.  Part of me is pushing myself to stop thinking about how much I love him, stop thinking about the past, start to push your mind forward and let go.  The other part of me just can't stop saying over and over this is wrong, this is wrong.  Don't let go, keep hanging on.  but how long do you hang on?  When do you accept what seems to be staring you in the face whether you want it or not?

My husband says he cannot give me what I need, he cannot even give himself what he needs.  He is lost, this I know.  But I can't lie and behave like I don't love him.  I can't pretend that I believe this is all wrong somehow.  I am so confused I feel like I am going to lose my mind.  I don't want to let go, and yet I am living in torture.

How do I get through this?  When does the pain stop?  I have been living with a broken heart for so long, yet how can I let go of the man I love?

I need help, I am overwhelmed by the hurt.

cinci