Dear Abby...

My entire life I have been struggling with one question:
How long can I survive if I continue to attempt to facilitate this relationship and fail? And it ALWAYS ends in failure. And I ALWAYS find a reason to keep trying.

Lately I'm finding that the reasons I'm giving myself just don't justify enduring a painful and damaging relationship. I spend a lot of time imagining how it would be to just let go, and on the surface it would be an instantaneous sigh of relief, but internally......would I continue to wonder forever if I had made the right decision? I wonder how long I can continue to try to be the bigger person. Am I fooling myself into thinking that I would even be worth the same amount of thought to you? It's one thing to put time and effort and love and care into a relationship if the other party is just as committed to some sort of resolution as you are, but in any other circumstance I think it's safe to say it would just be wasted time.
As I sit and torture myself with the possibilities and attempt to work my way through this maze of a broken relationship......do I even cross your mind?

Is there a crack in the foundation of my life that I'm just going to have to build around? Most of the time I think that that's the case. If I keep trying to single-handedly hold up this structurally unsound relationship, inevitably it's all going to come crashing down.....on me. And maybe that's why you are always stepping away...to avoid the debris and rubble of this damaged thing falling down on you. Maybe distance is smart on your part, and maybe that's why you have maintained it so well for so many years.

I give you more credit than you deserve most of the time, and I can only conclude that I have been completely deluded about our relationship, as I think is common when it is as unhealthy as ours. That makes me think that the only thing...the only SANE thing to do is to sever my ties. Step back, and let go. Let the rubble fall and do it's damage, and then build something new on solid ground.