What if this can't be repaired?

I found myself wondering that today. I had a day to myself. All to myself. My husband took the kids over to the east side of the state to visit family. I lounged around for a bit, hit Starbucks, and headed out to a cottage owned by someone my husband works with.

It was a beautiful, sunny day. Not too hot. Light breeze. Small bluegills trying to nibble at my toes when I dangled them in the lake. I actually touched a few of the eager fish with my fingers. Life was peaceful, life was good.

But somewhere along the line, I started thinking about our marriage. As it stands now, I wear my engagement ring, not my wedding ring. That was his idea. The idea being that I put on my wedding ring when it feels right again.

But maybe that symbolism triggered my mind. An engagement is less formal than a marriage, not viewed as a legal arrangement in the eyes of our society or our courts. People break off engagements all the time. I broke one off in college. (Thankfully. I fully believe that marriage would have been incredibly unhappy. Maybe he would have cheated on me too. Perhaps earlier.)

My point being that people walk away from engagements much more easily than they do marriages. A simple "It's over" can end an engagement. No protracted legal discussions, no messy alimony discussions. Just return the ring (or not, depending on your point of view) and walk away.

So perhaps wearing just my engagement ring triggered these thoughts. Can this marriage be saved? Can I ever feel madly in love with this man again? Because for much of the time I spent being in love with him, things were amiss...I just didn't know it. Even the period of time in our marriage that he claims was miserable, I thought things were okay. Ideal? No, but okay. Superficially, however, that marriage didn't appear too different from the marriage we have today. He is present more, and he helps me more, but as far as the things we do together, or the way we relate over dinner or casual conversation, things appear remarkably similar.

So how can I ever, ever know the true state of our marriage? I thought things were okay then, but apparently they were so terrible that he turned to my friend for comfort and love. So I obviously cannot trust my own instincts as to the health of our marriage. I can't trust him for that either.

The question, then: Do I continue on and just hope and pray that someday I will be able to trust my own assessment of our marital health? (Answer: How could I ever, ever again trust my own assessment when I was so pathetically incorrect before?) We already know the answer to whether I can just rely on him for an assessment of marital health. (There is also the fact that I just refuse to become someone who constantly begs her significant other for assurance that things are okay...I cannot live like that.)

Or do I just decide that I can't live like that and pray that someday someone will truly love me for who I am, and love me so dearly that they could never conceive of breaking my heart?

I really don't know, and that is what scares me the most right now.