Hey there Chiel ^^ Like some of your other commenters, I have not been here since your wedding, but I always get the updates sent to my email and always get a warm feeling inside knowing how hard at work and dedicated you are to this game. I've been following for years since I was a young teenager (24 now) and enjoy not only your artistry but also who you are as a person. Your kindness, passion, devotion, reliability...I've never met you in my life so I guess it's only my assumptions but my judgement based on your words and actions lead to seeing you as a very wonderful person with a big heart of gold.
That's why it saddens me to see you going through all this pain. That's why I think that you deserve someone who's going to see all those wonderful traits about you and will appreciate you. You deserve to be appreciated for all those wonderful aspects that make you who you are. If some stranger online can sense how amazing you are, then someone who is/was literally married to you should be seeing that ten-fold. (Really these men should be groveling at your damn feet and worshiping the ground you walk on but I'll reign back my personality for now ._.) ^^" You don't deserve to be just tolerated, you don't deserve to be someone's "Whatever". You're worth more than that as a person. I went back through some of the previous updates to understand the situation a bit better, and...throughout all those updates, there's not at one point where he even attempted to compromise or care or understand your feelings.
I just had a conversation recently with someone about relationships and how how people respond to conflict says a lot about them. (It's almost good to have slight conflict early on when dating someone in order to see how they react, though that's not to say to make conflict up lol!) But how people respond to conflict says a lot, and he's the type to shrug his shoulders and close his ears. That's in no way a healthy strategy for a healthy relationship; the biggest downfall in relationships is actually bad communication. In this case, it's not even just bad communication but also that he does not care and is not willing to fight for you. He never compromised either. Those are literally 3 major core parts of a relationship (compromise, communication, and actually loving/caring for your partner) and I have yet to see him display one....I think you should go back and read the comments in the devlog you had that said "emergency update;" also read your own words. I don't want to be someone that tells you what to do, but....to me I honestly can't see what he has left to offer you. I think giving him another chance would be holding on to something that once was; holding on to an idea of someone versus who they actually are.
I think it's hard for you because you see it as him changing after taking over his parent's shop. I'm sure it's crossed your mind that "If he just gets away from them, he will go back to his old self who was fun and happy, and we'll be okay again." But the thing is, even if he gets away from the shop...he still did not see you as someone worth fighting for or trying to compromise for. He never gave you any effort. Your marriage is not the priority to him. And again, it's not even about priority but the fact that he didn't even care to fight for you. Even if he still gave the shop priority and attempted to fight for your relationship, maybe it would have been salvageable. But he never attempted that even before things got to this point. Yes people can change for the worst but....I don't think it's a matter of him changing, I think it's never been in his nature to fight for you.
I'm very about like people feeling confident in themselves and loving themselves and respecting themselves. I have my own insecurities just like anyone else but I also got to a point in my life where I respect myself enough not to tolerate mess. It doesn't even take you being fully secure in yourself or fully loving yourself to have respect for yourself. I think it takes a level of self love and respect to love someone else while being able to separate yourself from them because they damage your energy and don't appreciate you (and quite frankly, he does damage your energy. You have to force yourself to update sometimes because you're so sad, and this is something you LOVE doing. It shouldn't be like that). Most people have that self respect in them even if they don't see it. The fact that you made yourself clear and tried to compromise and stood up for yourself shows that you do have the respect for yourself to not be treated as someone's option. I'm so proud of you and happy for that because it's not easy at all to separate from someone you love. But the value you have in you as a person and the love you give and all the amazing traits that make you YOU....all of that deserves to be celebrated and appreciated. You deserve to receive the love that you give back to others. The person who marries you shouldn't even be able to imagine life without you. So I think my stance is pretty clear on about giving him another chance ^^" Unless he does a full 180 and changes his actions, but...quite frankly, I do think you deserve better.
And I'm religious like you as well and, sadly it often leads to long, unhappy marriages for many people because of the religious implications tied into it. A lot of traditional people see it as inescapable. My mom spent 13 years of her life being unappreciated by my dad due to religion. She married him a bit too soon and when she shouldn't have really because they wanted to follow the no sex before marriage thing. He honestly was never a good match for her. Some dude warned my mom about him before the marriage and said he was a "dog" lol, warning him about my dads cheating ways. She never straight up caught him cheating but she kept finding evidence of him talking to women and things like that to the point where it lead to a divorce (he literally had a woman over our house when we were out of town who could describe our house in detail!!!) I was there with my mom through it all as a kid, from her finding the emails and texts and talking to her friends and crying. I saw it all. And honestly I just wouldn't wish a long and unhappy marriage on anyone for the sake of religion or convenience or holding on to memories. She literally did so much for my dad and he did nothing. He did yard work and stuff, built a deck in the back lol but in terms of doing literally anything else, he was trash. My mom was basically a maid. She deserved better than him. She also had us as kids which made it harder to want to leave, and a very expensive house. At least you are financially independent with no kids, it makes it easier to walk away.
Anyways, I think I made this wayyy too long haha, but I just wanted to show my support. I'm not anyone important or credible to give advice honestly LOL but, if you ever do need to talk to someone in more detail, I'm willing to listen! My twitter is "simplyxki" if you want to reach out (my previous twitter got banned for arguing with people LOL but it was the same handle as my personal IG which is justxkiera) so feel free to reach out.
I'm going to leave off with a light-hearted TikTok for you lol! I'm not a huge fan of these TikTok kids (*shakes cane in the air*) but this one was quite funny and fitting. Explicit/NSFW in dialogue so keep that in mind xD Might not be your type of humor since it's rather crude but idk maybe it will make you laugh haha, I send it to all my friends who go through issues with guys and it's saved to my phone!
Video (13 secs) (original video deleted so this is a duet/reaction video)
LOL basically that's my way of saying that there are guys out there who will appreciate you more than he ever could (going back to the "worship the ground you walk on" bit 😂). There are 7.8 billion people in the world now, there's definitely a better option out there somewhere that will give you what you deserve.
We love you and will always be rooting for you and your happiness! You deserve nothing less than the utter love and happiness you put out into the world! Thank you for being you and I hope you go to heal from this, no matter what happens. And I'm serious when I say my inbox is completely open if you'd like to talk! I'm the therapist friend for sure haha. And take a break if you need to! None of your fans that have stuck beside you this far would ever hold it against you to take any breaks! Take time for self care, even if you have to set an alarm every day to stop what you're doing and focus on some sort of self care. Whether that be eating some good food, sleep, watching/reading something, mediation, exercise...whatever helps you relax and what you consider self care. You deserve it love!