A New Outlook; a Journey of Strength and Hope.

It has now been 6 months since you left. I have picked up the pieces of the man I once was, but some were beyond repair. I had to make new pieces, in an attempt to be whole. The new pieces, as hard as I tried not to, have been forged from sorrow, anger and fear. This is not who I am, but I am stuck with these pieces as a part of my being. They serve as a symbol of resilience and hesitance; I barely survived this destruction of myself and I don’t think I would survive another. It is in that vein that I have accepted the hardened man I have become, I know that a love like I felt for you may never come my way again. Love maybe, but not the love I had for you, I don’t think I could let myself. I have come to terms with walking this life alone, it is an adventure of independence and personal strength. I am not saddened by this to the extreme that I once once, it comes as a relief to be able to see my future life without having to feel this pain again. I promised my heart to you, and it will stay with you. It is yours to keep, I can and will live without it, or at least try. My father, a man of few words, and even fewer tears came to tears the other day, and could not speak for a few hours. When he had the strength to speak again he told me “not to bury my heart too deep.” I told him “I will try”.

Ultimately the reason I write today is that I worry, I worry that it is entirely unhealthy to live in the manner I am living. Unfortunately I see no other way, I do not want to use the pain I have experienced as an excuse to be a cold and distant person, I want to be warm and friendly and helpful to all people, I just don’t want anyone to ever come as close to my heart as you once did. Not out of spite, out of fear and love. Fear of being crumbled once more and as much as I hate to admit it, love for you. I can’t shake it, I try not to miss you, but I can’t. I see you and I still get anxiety attacks, something I have never suffered before. I have been able to think of you less but to no avail because if I don’t think of you, I dream of you. I don’t usually dream or at least I don’t remember dreaming. When I successfully push you out of my mind, I wake up in the mornings having dreamed of us. But I am here today, happier then I have been in months, more sober, and more hopeful than ever, but it all comes with a shadow of worry. Worry that I won’t ever quite be as happy and as fulfilled as I once was. Here’s to more happy, more hope, and a future I can live with.

Cheers.

“In the depth of winter, I finally learned that within me there lay an invincible summer.”
― Albert Camus

How?

Today was tough. Not in a “oh I’m so sad I need help” way but in an “I need to write down how I feel because I can’t do anything else right now” way. I’ve been unsuccessfully trying to finish legitimate work that HAS to be done by tomorrow morning all day and it has to be creative and inspiring. So far it is neither of those and it is nearing 10:00pm.

Today I helped my wife move the rest of her things to her new place. Today marks the last time I HAVE to see her again and the weight of that reality is as fun as letting a bus drive over you. She was busy this morning, so I started sorting stuff without her before she arrived, thank god. If I had stumbled upon what I had stumbled upon while she was here I don’t know if I could have held myself together. I was separating the keepsake box which was pretty straightforward; plaques with our names on it, medals, etc, but there was a surprise. My wife had stored the large majority of the poems and gifts and notes I had written her over the years in there. A physical reminder that she was in love with me; as I separated the last of our things, about to see her for possibly the last time. Separated: No longer connected: to go in different directions: to become isolated from a mixture. The true reality of this has hit me hard. Right in the heart. I was passive and agreeable and unsure before. But I realize now, I want this woman, I love her, I love what we have and I want to keep her. Our relationship is THE single thing I care about most in this world and I have amicably let her walk away from it. How? How can I have let this happen? Can I reform what I have let break? I want her to love me too, but can I? I know I want her in my life and as my wife, but I don’t know if she will ever truly love me if she is.

Is that not what a woman wants? A man who will fight for her love? A man who will go to the ends of the earth for her? I want to do these things. I can be that man. I was that man. Then I let you go. I feel like I might regret this for the rest of my life. I haven’t had any regrets until now.

Please, let me show you how much I love you and love me back for doing so…

I shouldn’t have let this happen. She makes me so happy. She completes me. Her smile warms my heart and her touch makes me melt. The amount of spectacular adjectives that describe this woman are unfathomable. So smart, so strong, so sexy, so beautiful, inside and out. How could I let her slip through my fingers. I miss her so much. My love for her has not faded one iota since she left. I fear it never will and I will forever regret losing her. You are my everything love, come back.

Please. Come back, I’ll be everything you want and more. I need you.

I love you.

xoxo,

-spiderman

Here I Lay

Here I am. Laying in a bed this time. For the first time in a long time, as I have been sleeping on the futon in the office. The bed is a bittersweet moment. Mostly just bitter. She left today. She’s gotten possession of her new place and moved the essentials in this afternoon. So here I am in bed but without so much and losing more as we speak. 

As this looming divorce moves on I am losing so much. I am losing the love of my life and my best friend, as well as my dog, who I can no longer take care of, my cats, and my hobby of aquarium keeping. I am losing half of what we have accumulated together but it is not the loss of possessions that troubles me it is the companionship and my being. I am losing part of myself. So much of my identity and my life knowledge has been derived from what we have done together. I am not dependent on her to exist but after being together for 7 years there is a lot within myself that was built around the concept of US. Unfortunately us is no longer.

I am at a loss; I don’t know where to begin or how to pick up all of these pieces of myself and even if I can gather them all up I am not sure how I am supposed to be put back together. I know I can take care of myself, but I don’t know how to find myself and rebuild myself. I don’t know how  to pursue meaning; all of these things were inherent within our relationship. I am broken, and I don’t know how to put myself back to together. I am at a loss for meaning in my existence and I am questioning what I am doing with my life. I am pursuing a degree to become a teacher, and I think I will enjoy this, but ultimately it was so I could have the lifestyle I wanted to be able to be with my wife and raise a family together. Now I don’t know. I don’t have the desire to do anything at the moment; I know this is because I am depressed, but I don’t see an end to this feeling. I feel as though I should be of use to someone and maybe sign up for the military. I have always considered the military, and feel that protecting the wonderful people and country I live in is an incredibly worthy cause. It would give me meaning in my life and I would be very suited because I have nothing to lose. I will not make any rash decisions, but I am chronicling my thoughts here so I can reflect on them later.

Learning to stand tall again.

“It hurts to le…

“It hurts to let go. Sometimes it seems the harder you try to hold on to something or someone, the more it wants to get away. You feel like some kind of criminal for having felt, for having wanted. For having wanted to be wanted. It confuses you, because you think that your feelings were wrong and it makes you feel so small because it’s so hard to keep it inside when you let it out and it doesn’t come back. You’re left so alone that you can’t explain.

Damn, there’s nothing like that, is there? I’ve been there, and you have, too. You’re nodding your head.”

— Henry Rollins

My Love… Lost.

It’s over. Done. No chance of reconciliation. Hasta la vista baby. Fuck. Angry. Sad. Overwhelmed. Stressed. Hurt. Debilitated. Without. Empty. Frustrated. Surprised. Crushed.

I don’t know where to start or how to put my thoughts into words. At this point I’m just going to leave this post as is and come back to it another day when I can think….

Here I am, days later, after what feels like a lifetime.

This woman. My best friend, my confidante, my laughs, my fun, my love, my life, my wife, my soulmate; is leaving me. Not for another man, not because I have some inherent flaw that she can’t live with, not even to pursue ambitious dreams, I was down for that ride; nothing as tangible as that. She has been soul searching; and in her soul searching she has realized that she is missing a certain kind of love in her life; a love I cannot give her; a love I have never given her. An intimate, deeper, fuller, romantic and sexual love. Not just lust, but more. She loves me, but not in the way I just described; she has realized she never has. Now, after 7 years, 3 of them married, she has realized that she cannot settle for our love and she cannot find the love she is looking for here. I love her more than life itself. I have since I met her in Junior High School, I am so consumed by her, she is the most gorgeous woman I know, inside and out. She’s not just the kind of woman I physically want to be with she’s the embodiment of the very essence of what I want with me in my life. Before I met this woman, I didn’t have aspirations of being married and having children. I didn’t want that. It was to the point where I questioned my sexual orientation, it was only the fact that I’m blatantly attracted to women that made up my mind. Then I met her and it all changed. I loved this woman for more than a third of my life and I’ve been with her for almost as long. “Inseparable” as my mother would say, “exactly what I want in a relationship” my friends would say. When we talk women and what we want and my friends are trying to find words for what they want in a woman they say “You know, like yours…” and I couldn’t agree more. Intelligence, beautiful, sexy, humour, patience, charm, charisma, joyful, vivacious, logical, reasonable, approachable, gorgeous… I don’t have a large enough thesaurus to explain to you how wonderful she is. Now here I am.

I can’t help but wonder; what could I have done differently? Is there something undesirable about me? Did she find someone else? This mindset has plagued me for weeks now; and when the inevitable defeat of my thinking comes it makes room for the very darkest of thoughts. I find my self stuck in this horrible state of inaction because with exactly one half of my body and soul I want to fight for her; change everything, never let her go, and have her by my side for the rest of my life. Just like I’ve been told all my life by the media and everyone “If you want something, go get it, period.”. The other half looks farther into the future and thinks “could I live with myself knowing that she will never be as happy as she could be while with me?”. The answer is no, I think it would be worse than letting her go., knowing I am the very obstacle keeping her from what she needs. So with 51% of my heart and soul I hold myself together everyday, battling this incessant back and forth inside with hopes that someday in the future I will know that she is the happiest and most fulfilled she’s ever been. It is this very hope that keeps me strong; for within the 51% of me I have left I am divided yet again. What if she does not find what she is looking for? What if maybe what she is seeking is right here, within me, right in front of her? I hope she can find what she needs. I will remain less than half, as she has taken with her most of me and what is left is broken; divided and at war. I truly, truly, wish that she finds exactly what she is seeking; until then I will remain at war within myself; it’s when I know that all hope is lost for our reunion that I can gather up the remains of myself and move on. A shell of a man with a broken soul, patched and pieced together, but with half missing; this is what I hope for. I plan nor expect to love again; at this point I don’t know if I want to; half of what is left leaves little to none.

I’ve never regretted anything in my whole life, and I am being completely honest I have not one regret, but I do now. I will regret losing you for the rest of my life, I will regret not spending the little time we had so much differently. We shared so many great memories, but I experienced what I had with you like I had the rest of my life to experience with you; it was ok to go slow and plan things for the future. Had I known I only had these seven years, I would have truly experienced life with you, in the moment, taking every opportunity I could do do the things we love and wanted to do together as much as possible. Explored, lived, loved, laughed. I hope someone else does not make the same mistake I have; I hope he lives everyday like it was his last with you, instead of living to the last of his days remembering you…

I love you, with my whole heart and soul. I hope you find what you are looking for.You are an incredible woman, I’ll miss you, take care of yourself.

I’ll be fine.

Forever yours,

XO

Looking for an Answer; Hoping to Last Long Enough to do So.

I don’t want to lose her, but I think it may have already happened. She is so distant, cold, and almost callous at times. I think she had given up on us before she even brought it to my attention. I miss her, I miss her so much. I don’t want to sound like a little 15-year-old boy but my vocabulary is limited; I just love her so much and I don’t know what I’ll do without her. She is seemingly having no issues with the fact that we having been sleeping separately for a while now and on top of that is very fluent in the art of living like a roommate with me. I am unsure if she is just very good at concealing her emotion; which is something she can do, it has just never been from me, or if she is genuinely so disconnected already. I have never felt like she would cheat on me, ever, and she has said that she wouldn’t explicitly, but I feel like falling in love with someone else would be the only logical way to explain such a sudden disinterest. I have asked her to help me clean the house and to help me go to our storage unit so we can bring home the futon (as I have been sleeping on the floor) and she hasn’t been able to do so yet. She has been busy, but I feel this is due to a lack of caring, possibly because I am overly sensitive at the moment. The only fleeting moments of her love for me that are left are when she says I love you; but this is bitter-sweet, I worry that it is but a habit, and I KNOW that she loves me, but not intimately. She may as well be saying I love you to her father or brother.

I don’t know if I can take it. We have agreed that we should try living like roommates, but I hate it. Every second. I miss her, and I love her, and I want to be with her. Unfortunately, I don;t think she feels the same. I am so stuck and so lost because I cannot talk to anyone. We don’t want the world/our friends and family to know yet so that their influence doesn’t sway our decisions one way or another. This means anyone whose opinion I would want to have, I can’t. I am not close with my parents and haven’t seen eye to eye with them on a lot of things, but the last little while all I have wanted to do is talk to them about it, which is SO strange. I wake every morning, in the office, on the floor and I’m not even upset, I have the strongest desire to walk into our bedroom, crawl in bed on hold my wife, to kiss her soft skin again, smell her hair, look into her eyes. All of it. I don’t just feel this way because I am a “horny male”, I don’t even want to have sex, I juts want to feel that intimacy between us again. God I miss her. These feelings, this absolute desire to have her back, to bring things back to “normal” make me think I won’t be able to do this. Things will never be normal, because she has realized that she doesn’t love me intimately, she loves me dearly, but not intimately. She says during the sexual and intimate times her anxiety is almost tangible; she thought this was normal; until recently and when she realized this she told me that she has never felt true intimate love with me from the beginning…. tough. If it never HAS been, how will it EVER be? I don’t think I can live in a “sexless” relationship where my wife has chosen to stay with me simply because she doesn’t think she can find better. I don’t know what to do, I feel like if I love something as much as I love her I am supposed to fight for it; but if what I’m fighting for doesn’t want me what do I do then? Living in this state of limbo in which I have to feign that I don’t want to reach out and hold her hand, or kiss her goodnight is killing me and I don’t know if I’m supposed to wait for it to end, or just end it know for my own well being. Even if it does end, if she stays, which is what I “want” I don’t know if I can deal with it, knowing she doesn’t love me the way I love her. I’m so conflicted.

Looking for an answer,

hoping to last long enough to do so.

Resentment

Resentment.

I hear about it a lot in break-ups, it’s not like I was completely unaware, but I am already resentful and it has taken me by surprise. I didn’t think it would happen at all, and for sure didn’t think it would happen so quickly. But here I am. I’m not perpetually sad, walking around like Eeyore with a cloud over my head, like I was initially; I’m spiteful, bitter, angry, and determined. This is not in my nature, I’m not a guy that holds grudges, or even gets angry. I’ve never been in a physical fight in my life, and I can count on one hand the amount of times I’ve yelled at someone in an angry fight. Even with my wife, we have never really fought, and never have we yelled at each other. I feel like I am a pretty chill fellow. Now all of the sudden, I don’t want to hold her, I don’t want to kiss her, I am upset. I’m upset that she mislead me for so long. Yes, she wasn’t aware of her feelings until recently, but what am I to do now? I don’t want to be the man she has “settled” for because she is worried she won’t find anything better, on top of that I want a relationship where sex and intimacy are involved.

This has led me to rethink how I feel; I was worried that the longer I wait for her to decide what she needs to do the more I would wither, ultimately leaving me as a husk of a man. Now I worry that by the time she decides I may not be able to love he anymore. I worry that I will be too resentful and never be able to love her wholeheartedly because I know she has stayed because she has chosen to settle. I don’t want to be the one to ultimately have to end things, but it won’t be fair to either of us if this is how I feel. This scares me. It adds another alternative that is also a “break-up”. Aside from the fear it has brought on, it has brought on a grim hope.

A new light. The ability to start fresh; from nothing, build my life, build myself, build new relationships, new friends and lovers. The grimness of the situation is that it will likely cost me extensively financially; I am a student and cannot afford much in the way of accommodation. My wife and I have two cats and a dog, and unless I take on the dog, who I love dearly, we will have to surrender her. I don’t want to do this, as she is such a sweet heart and we rescued her; promising her she was safe and ok now and forever… So if I am to find a living situation that will accommodate a dog, and ideally, be a “non-roommate” situation, so I can find myself I will need to pay much more then if I could simply rent a room. Not to mention in due time re-accumulating all of the physical belongings we will have to split. But the very prospect of a new adventure has excited me. I love the new and the different, exploring.

I still love her, I truly do think I always will. But right now, I love her from a distance, with resentment. These feelings are so foreign to me, and could very well change, as they have throughout the process thus far. In the here and now and for the last few days I am upset, angry, bitter and resentful. Hurt. The most enlightening part of this transformation of my feelings though is the increase in my hope and optimism. Things might not be as bad as I expected; hard, but good. Trying to experience this whole situation as it is without forcing things one way or another will be a true balancing act.

Balance on.

Letting Go: Long Day, Longer Night.

Letting go. Letting go of this is going to be the hardest thing I will ever do. Yesterday my wife and I decided that we should try to live like roommates for now. The logic is we would rather “try” to be separated now than do it “for real” and realize we made a mistake.

I gave her the last hug and kiss I may ever give her.

I am a strong person. More physically than emotionally, but strong and it took every ounce my being to let go of her. We hugged for almost thirty minutes before I had the courage to let her go.

It’s been hard. I promised her I wouldn’t reach for her by accident and then be incredibly sorry/ashamed that I did. I told her it will happen, but I will try hard not to.

Last night we didn’t sleep together. I slept on the floor in the living room (until we can arrange something better). This was hard, both the floor and the emotion of it. I woke repeatedly through the night, every time the reality of the situation hitting me even harder, a great swift punch in the face. She was in the room beside me but we were not together, because WE are not together. Thump.

This morning I am sore. Very sore. I cannot tell if it is from sleeping on the floor or if my body is just beating itself up. Logically it would be the floor, but I feel like I’ve been in a fight; everything hurts, everything is tender.

I’m trying so hard to be “normal”; to be happy and think of this as an opportunity to follow my dreams. Unfortunately all of my dreams involve her. The ones that don’t I still want her to be a part of. She can tell, I’m trying hard not to let it show. I just don’t have a lot of strength left… and it’s only day one.

I am not a religious man, not formally, I believe in the power of the self, and a certain amount of divine “intervention” that exists in our world. I believe what goes around comes around; so one should treat others the way he/she wants to be treated. You could call me agnostic I suppose. But at this point, I can’t tell if I’m past believing in anything , or so desperate to believe in something that I am blind. I’m looking for answer but at the same time trying not to just give up. On this, on everything.

I love her, I always will, but the very thing that brings me so much life and joy is killing me slowly. What is this supposed to mean?

Hope is waning.

A Guy Can Dream

Sleep.

I am in a constant state of exhaustion, my body aches everyday from thinking/trying not cry so sleeping is easy to begin with. Although the very best thing about sleeping is that I quit thinking about my predicament for a while. I slip away into a place that has no regard for the gravity of my situation. No fears, no worries, no hoping, just an endless grey. Sometimes I can escape for a whole night, but not usually, because if I wake, the love of my life is laying beside me. Sometimes I can escape for an hour or two mid day. Sometimes a mere 20 minutes, but it’s 20 minutes I am free of this crushing weight.

Today, after an 8 hour night, I wanted to study for exams, but as my mind wouldn’t focus on anything other than the situation, I laid down. Three hours later I woke. Three hours.

The only pitfall is that I have to wake up at some point. I wish I could just slip into a coma until she decided. If she wanted to separate, they could just unplug me. If by some stroke of luck she realizes she loves me, truly and fully, I could just wake up and be there for her and forever.

A guy can dream…

Waiting & Breaking

Limbo continues. I don’t know if I will survive this. Every day that she takes to decide I lose more and more strength, along with that, hope.

I am so hopeful that she has a change of heart and a great reigniting of her love for me, but in the same instant I am incredibly scared. Scared that she will stay for the wrong reasons. Scared she will settle for me; for what we have, for the comfort of it. Scared that if she stays she’ll forever regret it and leave me later on. I’m so lost.

I don’t want to pressure her into staying. I don’t want to guilt her into thinking one way or another. I want her to make the decision as it is hers to make. At the same time, she is what I am most proud of in my life, the best part of my life. My best friend, and my soulmate; is this not worthy of fighting for? I feel that if I just lay back and let her decide I will forever regret it. I’ve been told and I believe in fighting for what you believe in. I believe in us. Have since I met her, did when I asked her to marry me, still do.

I worry that the longer it takes for her to decide the less of me that will be left to love if she decides to stay. I’m breaking, and I need to be solid. Why stay for a broken man?

Wishing I knew the answer. Dying more every day I don’t.