To my wife:

I am sorry and deeply sad our marriage is ending. I wish we could turn the calendar back to October 2014 and begin again.  I know we can’t.

The sadness for me is compounded by failure. Not only am I losing the woman I love, but I must accept the responsibility and consequences of my way of being.

I am not asking for sympathy, or forgiveness, or for you to change your decision.  That die has been cast and our separate plans are moving ahead. I only want you to know that I acknowledge that I operated without integrity.

I also want you to know that I do believe you did once love me; and that over time my way of being led you to fall out of love with me; and that this makes you sad, too.

We have invested five precious years of our lives that can never be recovered.  We are not young people with years to squander.

I am also sorry that our relatively short time together lacks the equity, the foundation, on which we could have reconstructed what had been damaged.  I would have been committed to trying, to cleaning up having not honored my word.  I messed things up.

Now, I need to be on my own to become a whole person, and to live outside my emotions.

I own my own heartbreak.

I will love you always.

Love,

Niland