Sadness

Okay, so it is truly something you never expect. I know I certainly didn't. You come home, you get into a fight and one day you are alone.

I'm alone. For the first time in a long time. Some context:

I have been married for 7 years, almost to the week. I have known my wife for 20 years almost to the month, and we dated, lived together, or were married roughly 16 of those 20 years. I started dating her about 3 weeks after I graduated from college, and with the exception of a few months of being separated, I pretty much have spent almost every day with her. If we didn't see one another we at least spent some amount of time talking on the phone. Suffice it to say there's a significant hole in my life with her pared out of it.

So what happened?

Well, I wish I could say that it was something dramatic (well not really). It is still painful and dramatic enough without something catastrophic. There was not cheating, (that I know of), there was no smack across the face or anything like that. What there was: a lot of yelling with no one listening, a lot of mean spirited comments in both directions. Two incidents, one on each side that distinctly showed that we could have cared less about the other one. The kind of thing that leaves a deep scar, and something that you can apologize for and make go away. No matter what, you kind of can't take it back. Overall you have two people that have lost respect for one another over a series of a thousand and one cuts. None of them life ending…just another injury.

For the sake of privacy and my own sanity I will not give the details of all those abuses, they are irrelevant at this point. It is definitely one of those things for each of us that we wish we could take back. I know there isn't more than a couple of days that goes by that I don't think about my crappy treatment of my wife, and unfortunately there isn't a few days that go buy where I don’t think about how poorly I was treated.

I just don't know how it went from best friends, lovers, to married, and then finally to two people who are at bitter odds with one another despite the repeated mantra and veneer of "we want want it to be better, more humane, more caring." I haven't really seen that humanity from either of us, and despite being sad (extremely sad) there have certainly been many times over the last few weeks that I have been defensive and spiteful based on feeling hurt, scared, or ias a result of a protective shell I've buit, ready to do battle to continue to protect myself.

Most of all I just feel sad. It's a sadness I can't rid myself of no matter what I do. All of my friends have given their helpful and not so helpful anecdotes.

"time heals all wounds."

"this is the start of a new life for you."

"you'll be better, and you will find your real soul mate, it just takes time"

"you're better than this, and it is good that you finally figured out this was a crappy situation"

"there are other fish in the sea."

So I guess everyone has kind of said some derivative of the person before them, of course I am thankful that they will even listen to me…but what do you really say to someone in my position. I know they are all struggling with it as well, and a lot of them have been there themselves. Here's what I boil it down to:

Yeah, it's going to hurt, and probably for a long time, and of course I am sad. The situation was crap, and (logically) good I can finally see this. Umm, my special someone is out there somewhere, uhh, hmmm, not sure I would even think to look at this point. Though I know I don't want to be alone, at least over the long term.

And I guess if I read between the lines of what some friends have told me: "We never really liked her anyway." Or maybe the slightly softer way of putting it "you guys just aren't good for one another."

Yeah, again, logically I get that. I see it, and everything in me says it is right, but the freaking pain that I am feeling is so acute, so evil, so hard to stay focused on anything else.

I don't remember a presentation I gave to 20 people in a large room at one of my clients last week. I heard it was a good presentation. Probably because I have great support from my coworkers who are some of my best friends.

There are so many things that remind me of her, that it is hard to not trip over something or forget about something that ultimately brings me back to thinking about her and what we were (good and bad). I mistakenly went to the church that we were married in, actually I made a conscious choice to go there to meditate for 5 minutes before walking in the door of my old house to deal with the finances. It slipped my mind that the place I have turned to for sanctuary all these years would be an extremely painful reminder of our relationship and the vows we took there. We vowed to figure out our problems and not leave one another alone and destitute, but sometimes the thing you swear up and down to do are the things daily that you seemingly forget to do.

I lost it. I just started bawling in the back of the church. At that moment I knew just how broken I was.

…so now what.

You know, I don't really know. I think that there are a lot of good and bad things about this situation. I am just going to start writing about them and see what happens. See if is anything that makes me feel better.

There are certainly good days. I have a lot to be thankful for, I know that. I have great family, and amazing friends. I have a lot of people that like and value me. It's just that the person I have spent the last 16 years with is gone. It's a giant void, it creates a lot of uncertainty and doubt in me. I know it will get better as time heals that wound and I start fishing again. ;-) or whatever the blend of that ends up being.

What I've learned to date:

1. Being alone sucks, but I can choose to not be alone all the time. I can hang out with friends and I can hang out with family. If I can't see them daily, it is good to check in with them on the phone.
2. It is good to be busy and doing different things
3. It is good to reach out to people I haven't seen in a while and see what they are up to. Expanding my social circle has always worked well for finding business and getting ideas about my work. In this case it is just good to have support and new ideas.
4. Trying new things, and looking at things that I might have been restricted by in the past that are now open to me. Independence I haven't had really since I was about 23?!! Was it really that long ago.
5. Trying to understand "why" is more and more pointless as each day goes by. I have natural curiosity, and I have a natural need to explain myself. I guess if either one of us really cared or were really willing to listen, and more importantly do anything about it….well we would have when it mattered, the why. I am sure I will deal with all the painful stuff in time, and I am sure that I will process through. Maybe then addressing my own "why". Likely, I will never be able to explain why to her, or understand her why.
6. My memories of the past are mine, and they are never going to changed (good or bad) by anyone. My reality is my reality, is my reality. That is comforting because I can remember things how I chose to remember them. I can stick to the past pieces as I want to see them, and see the pieces I want to. I know that it will all get processed through at some point, but for right now I can look at the good and bad as they come. Not worried that everything is going to be changed by something that someone says.
7. Right now every day isn't seemingly any easier than the last, I am surviving, and right now that is a struggle. Based on all that I have been through over the last 30 days, I imagine it is going to be a really long time before I start to actually feel better.
8. Sticking to a feeling helps me deal with it. I go a little nuts when the feelings change from happy to sad to angry, to sad all in a 60 minute cycle. That is exhausting and it feels like a loop I can't break out of.

I have to take this one out of the numbered list but it is something I know: there will be mistakes, nothing is always as it seems, and there is nothing to say that set of feelings won't continue. I also know there is no going back. It's a sad reality, but as much as I wanted to fight it, a fundamental truth.

No, I haven't lost my fight, I am just admitting it's over. Like it or not, it is time to move on.

Some other crap I can't shake...

I will never sleep in my bed again, I will never come home again to my wife, we will never cook dinner, or hang out on the deck. It's like part of me has died. Unfortunately we are both still walking around about to meet to discuss our bills…which will send all of these feelings through the same wash, soak, spin, dry cycle again.

What do you do?

Breath.