There is no doubt about it, things change. Whatever your feelings, for good or ill, daily life is fluid.
Sometimes it turns out to be for the better. And there are times when we just can’t escape the shitty side of it.
I recently found myself to be teetering at the cusp of just such a shitty side. From my vantage point it appeared to be the edge of an impossibly high cliff.
We were not happy. And we’d been lying to ourselves for far too long in order to cover up that fact. Worst of all, we had – by way of painting on daily smiles – been lying to everyone around us. Not that we were trying to fool anyone or each other. But the bottom line was that living your life merely for the sake of what others or your significant other might think is wrong. No matter how much you care.
This isn’t some sob and whine story here, but rather my way of ‘coming out’ with a truth that’s been staring us in the face for a couple of years now.
Our “marriage” is over. Has been for a long time, and yet neither my better half nor I have been able (or wanting) to admit it. Perhaps due to the fact that we still love one another very deeply. Or maybe it’s because we don’t want to let everyone around us down. It is also a possibility that we have just grown so comfortable with living as a couple in suburbia that we are too afraid of the inevitable separation that loomed on the horizon. After all, what would the neighbors think??
I don’t know if it’s one or all of the above.
Now, there’s no way I’m going to dish out the exact reasons for this deeply unhappy set of circumstances in which I found myself. Nor can I assign blame. Suffice it to say it wasn’t anything as sordid as either of us cheating, or any other Lifetime Channel movie theme. Sometimes, pumpkins, it just doesn’t work and the only thing left to do is salvage and/or cherish the friendship you still have.
For those who just have to know…NO, it didn’t and still doesn’t involve a third party. So get your mind out of the Jackie Collins mode.
Bottom line is that it takes two people to make something work and it takes two to fuck it up. Lawd knows he had his hands full with putting up with my mountain of mental “isms”. Not to mention my off-and-on health issues. I’ve never claimed to be a rose garden…but then, I never promised to give one either. But I sure as hell tried. And to a greater extent, so did he.
Sorry, that sounded pissy, didn’t it? Wasn’t meant that way.
As I sit here writing this, I’m looking outside at the lightly-blowing winds that are whipping through the now-bare trees. The nipple-hardening cold winds. This always reminds me of that period of stasis that nature must endure just before it’s inevitable renewal. Spring is just around the corner. Three of the three billion grass seeds we spread on the lawn will, as usual, begin to grow and make that square inch of lawn look fantastic. That thought always gave me a thrill. After all, that’s just before the rain of the maple seeds and the joust between them and Steve Quixote.
Unfortunately, that just wasn’t a smile I could paint on this year. Didn’t matter how much I’d like to, it just was not in me.
I didn’t want to hurt him. I knew that no matter what I said to him or even how I said it, he was going to be crushed. As I said earlier, I think even he knew we’d just been going through the motions. And goodness knows he’s threatened to end it (or words to that effect) on more than one occasion. But when push came to shove, my biggest fear was that he was not going to take the reality of the end at all well.
Here’s one of the reasons I felt unhappy. In order to avoid hurting him with divorce, I’d only been prolonging the inevitable by being a coward. I’d lived this lie…wait, not so much a lie…mainly not wanting to accept reality myself. But a lie of omission is, in itself, still a lie.
So, just what was it that we were so afraid of when it came to ending this? Well, let me break it down for you:
1) Hurting each other.
The emotional investment alone was going to be hard to sever. He was going to think it’s so damned easy for me to do this because I would want to remain calm and ‘together’. After all, one of us would have to be.
2) Family/Friends
Since his family mostly lives pretty local (mine are all in CA), I’ve been part of that family by extension for the past 6+ years. There are also the shared friends. We have so many and something like this always seems to place them in the awkward position of having to “choose”. Obviously, we aren’t the type of people who want anyone to have to choose who to invite to what at what time without offending the other. Been there…done that. Sucks for everyone no matter what.
3) Home & Hearth
Not ranking as high as the emotional investment, but still something to consider, the material investments (as well as all those legal documents we’d signed) do tend to build up over the years. Personally I’d rather avoid the whole “What is mine and what is yours?” scenario. Of course, this is where divorces tend to get nasty. The division of ‘things’. Ugh!! Not to mention the house itself. Obviously it will be me moving. And I’d hope he’d decide to keep the place, as we’ve put an awful lot of work into it.
4) Community Commitments
Not only will I lose my presidency of the homeowners association since I will no longer be living in this subdivision, but, depending on where I move to, could also lose my commission with the city (if I end up living in a different district).
5) Pets
Who gets the kids? Well, since three of the four were his before we got together, those will remain with him. Only one will be in contention. We’ll see what happens there.
Don’t misunderstand my intentions about listing the above. We haven’t reached that particular stage just yet. These were simply things both of us had, at one point or another, had to have go through our minds while rationalizing all of this.
I don’t want all of the above to sound trite. Nor do I want it to sound like anything but #1 ranks as a priority with me. For the past six plus years he’s been my life. And he always will be a great and special part of my life.
But in the final analysis, what’s living without feeling alive?
At the risk of plagiarizing Beyonce, I wasn’t at home in my own home. That had been my feeling for a couple of years and no amount of talking or trying had changed that. But in many ways, I know he felt the same.
So, what happens now?
I want to live. I want him to live. And we have time in each of our lives to do that.
I think it’s time.
So, where do we go from here? I suppose we could just part ways and that would be that, but we didn’t part that way. We discussed this and decided it didn’t have to be such an abrupt end – in every way – to so many years of what we did share. Besides, it’s not like we ended all “War of the Roses” or some shit like that. In truth, it bloody well is possible to live as friend. It’s easy to think that two people who end the “marriage” chapter can’t live together. We’re adults. We continue to cherish what we do feel as friends.
As I said earlier, we still care for and about one another and aren’t willing to toss the friendship we share. It’s just a new chapter in our lives. Granted, eventually we will begin separate lives eventually. That’s’ just another natural stage in this sort of thing. But we’re not there (yet).
If anything, lately we’ve both been in much better moods and FAR better around each other in our daily interactions than we have in years. That, as it were, is that. If nothing else, seeing Steve smile as he has lately has made it all worth it. Because in the final analysis, that’s all that really mattered.
So, while there will, I’m sure, be the random update on this, I’ll wrap this one up for now.
