Alone.

For a long time now, I have felt utterly and completely alone.

Here is a scenario -- if you cheated on your spouse for lengthy amount of time, but wanted to stay with your spouse and make it work, wouldn't you be extremely remorseful and spend a great deal of time trying to make them feel loved?

That's not how it's been in our house. I have communicated to my husband very clearly the ways I need him to behave to make me feel loved. He has communicated his needs as well. I have been working SO HARD to make him feel loved, doing everything I can think of to show him how I feel.

He, on the other hand, is so wrapped up in his own mental stuff that he cannot do the same for me.

And it hurts.

I have tried hard to explain how I feel to him, to make him see that I need to be a priority to him. He seems to understand when we're talking, but then I see no changes.

I am not the one who cheated. I am the one who was betrayed -- so why am I doing the ass-kissing around here?

A few nights ago, we had yet another conversation about how awful I feel about the behaviors I'm seeing. I was completely calm and rational, but he didn't like what I was saying, and he did something really, hideously awful to me. Worse than the cheating, worse than the beating, worse than the lies and backbiting that he's done to me since we first go married, worse than hiding money or controlling me or snooping into my private business. It was truly, truly terrible.

Not only that, but he told me, over and over, that I deserved to be cheated on.

I made him leave. He is no longer welcome in my home.

I have given it my all, done all I can to make this marriage work despite everything, but I can see now that it's not going anywhere and I can't continue to give my all when he will not.

Now I have been no angel. Don't get me wrong. Since finding out about the affair, I have done more than my fair share of yelling, screaming, crying, lashing out.

But I DID NOT DESERVE TO BE CHEATED ON. Period. Because before I found out that my husband wasn't man enough to be faithful, I was a damn good wife.

He tells everyone that will listen that I was a terrible wife, a horrible mother. But he is a LIAR. I have always given 200%, as much as I was ever capable of, to my husband and family. And I think in his heart, he knows that. But for some reason, he feels that he needs to bring me down in order to elevate himself, and that's kind of messed up and infantile.

I didn't deserve any of this.

But for what he did to me the other day, he absolutely deserves to live separate from me.

Perhaps in a few months we can revisit this. Perhaps if he gets very serious psychiatric care we can look at trying to make things work.

I truly feel that I gave it my best shot. I do not feel bad about making him live away from me. Right now, this is best for all of us, but especially for our children.

I am a good person. Perhaps some day those who mean the most to me will see that.