Dear Keith,

I have been writing some version of this letter in my head for what feels like years. Sometimes everything just builds up and builds up until I can’t take living within myself anymore. Especially when I have all of this time to myself and we can no longer hide behind our jobs or a new house or a new puppy or a vacation. When you strip all of that stuff away, the problem is the same one that has always been there. It’s been there since before we got married.

I am sorry that you found my to do list and that it contained some things that were concerning to you. I suppose it probably feels to you like I am always hiding things like that from you and then surprising you with it at the least convenient times. There are so many times that we have had this same conversation about our marriage. We hate those conversations because they are hard and they bring up problems that neither of us knows how to solve. So we ignore them once we have gotten out our pent up feelings. The things we have been over again and again have not changed for me, I have to be honest about that. I still want to go home. I will never feel like I belong here. And even though I know you try to understand that, I am not sure that you can. Because my feelings about being here have so many more implications for the future that are going to cause so many more problems. One would be, I don’t want to have kids here. I can’t stand the thought of our children growing up away from my family. It kills me and kills my desire to have children.

Paula asked me if I feel like you hold me back. The root of my anxiety may be my inability to reconcile my love for you and having to give up my family, my friends, and my dreams. And I do love you. I love you more than anything. I do not love my life, though, and that eats away at me.

We got married so young. Those years you are supposed to be figuring out who you are what you want, we gave those up. And now I feel lost because I have no idea who I am without you or if I am even capable of handling my own life without you. I know you did it out of love, but you took away so much of my independence trying to be the perfect husband. When you are not here I literally will spend hours just sitting. I have no idea what to do when I am not responding to your needs. If our character is reflected in who we are when we are alone… I am not really anything. I wonder if you find that as frightening as I do.