You have to be a man that can make her happy. You're not even a man that can make yourself happy. For her to come back, you have to honestly believe that you are the right person for her, and that from her perspective she is better off with you. Can you honestly say that? Not right now, certainly.

You have to believe in this separation, you have to love this separation, you have to imbibe it because you have to love yourself enough to live through it. You have to love her enough to let her heal and work through pain, and potentially find love somewhere else. You have to let yourself change and gain new experience with your new self. Reconciling now would be a shortcut, a statement of selfishness and laziness. Look at yourself, who were you? I love you, but there were parts of you that were not making you happy. You were hurting yourself and hurting her too much. The pain was building up to critical levels. Nothing could change that. Sit with the hurt you were causing, sit with the memories you were blotting out. Sit with the resentment and disappointment. Sit with the guilt. I love you, and I want to water you and feed you so you will grow. You will grow. And you will soon be a man that can make yourself and others happy. You will be an excellent husband if you want to, but give it time.

I need to let go of my seven year marriage, but there is an even bigger and dearer part of me to let go of; I need to let go of the fear. The man that was in that bar was a real man, a real part of me, a part of me that I have known for 20 years or more, a part of me that I have saved and protected even as I have periodically hated that man. That part of me that sneaks around in the night, that hides his real desires even from himself, that man that needs anonymity and shadows, not light and intimacy. That man that fights and resists love.