Decision time
QUESTION: I am married for 25 yrs and my husband has been working abroad since. I’ve lived alone with my 2 children and his only support is financial. He visits us every year but no love attached, only materialistic. I am in love with a man 10 yrs older who I feel drawn to and he keeps professing his love for me saying that we may have been connected in previous life. Is it true? ~Anonymous, India
ANSWER: What you have is a marriage of convenience—for your husband. It is all right if you think this is the way you should be living your life. But you are really living his life and not yours. All the decisions are being made by him. This arrangement has nothing to do with love. It is time for you to decide if you really want to live the life of an unconditionally loving relationship.
You have had a taste of what life could be like with the man to whom you are drawn. Age is immaterial. The two of you have been together in prior lives and have had many happy experiences. Isn’t it time to start putting yourself first? What is keeping you tied to your marriage? In fact, it is not what a marriage is supposed to look like. The only thing you have really gotten out of this union is two children your husband figured would keep you happy and occupied.
Your children feel the pain of loneliness you suffer and they wish better for you. Any change must be because you feel it is for your own best interest. Love yourself enough to make a life you can tolerate. Nothing is right or wrong they are just decisions, choices for the lessons you came to learn. Think only of yourself for once. What will make you feel good about yourself and the life you are leading?
Making decisions comes with the responsibility of the outcome, but that is how you learn your strengths and weaknesses. If you never assume the task of decision making, you will never be in charge of your own life. It is easy to be under the control of another—you never have to do anything. You are like a flower in a glass bottle, you grow and develop but you don’t interact and make your own way outside your confinement.
Do you want to stay bottled up, or do you want to experience living in the world?