I look around my empty house.
The teenagers are, as usual, out and I am alone.
The official brown envelope is half-opened in my hand.
I think back and I remember. Look beyond the darkness in my cloistered heart and hear her laughter.
Her smile shines back through the pain and velvet blackness to light my way there.
We are young and I watch her. She never even noticed me but I observed her as she skipped between the groups of laughing males. Boys and men. They loved her vivacity, her sparkle, held onto her words, her hands, tried to catch her and hold her without success.
And she became mine. I threw caution to the wind that day when Fate threw her into my orbit and my brother knew her well enough to introduce us. I asked her if she would come for dinner with me and, to my amazement, she agreed.
The reality of trying to hold on to a wil ‘o the wisp became apparent soon after. Her youthful immaturity jarring on my well-to-do senses. My uncertainty betrayed itself and communicated to her.
She tried to curtail her effervescence, to fit a square peg into a round hole and stay with me.
But I was still unsure of a future together. Her determination to focus on intimacy and affection were things beyond my psyche. She was wild and wilful. Tactile and tactless. Days could be fraught as her spirit fought against the constrictions of my obstinacy. Her desire to be loved pitted against my refusal to indulge in public displays of affection.
Until it became apparent that there would be nothing better. That she could and would fulfil my needs.
A wedding and children.
And the sense of growing apart.
She stopped showing me her love. And the more she drew back, the more I forced my carnal desires upon her. It was the only way I knew to show her that I cared. I couldn’t do it the way she wanted. Everything in my upbringing and my life restrained me from reaching out my hand to stroke her cheek or putting my lips, unasked, against her cool cheek.
She became withdrawn and silent. Diminishing before my eyes as she internalised her emotions, repressing the fire within her until, volcanic, it would erupt forth in venom and vitriol. With fault and blame and responsibility that I was not prepared to acknowledge.
She was mad and I fought her insanity, protecting my children from her maladjustments in every way I could. Until, finally, she walked away and left us.
But she still saw them, it was only me that she didn’t want to be with. Could no longer talk to.
At first, I did not miss her. Was glad to be out from under that malevolent gaze that followed me around each room as I went about my business.
And now, with my children off leading their own lives, I remember what it was like before.
When I loved her and tried so hard to please her without actually physically having to touch her in public. Small gifts, allowing her to have her way over minor decisions.
More than anything, I remember how she brought out the best in me and made me feel alive.
Desired and loved.
If I called her now, would it be too late?
Could I finally find the words to express how much I need her behind me?
And remind her of what it was like before our love went away…
I reach for the phone…
What about now…?
My Friend,
You are EXTREMELY GOOD at being able to write from the Other position!
I knew from the start, that you were trying to see if this was “his” realization.
Yes “he” lost you. No One is perfect, and you had your parts that played out…but “HE” would not love you in a way that made you complete!
You spent YEARS trying to get him to see, how the 2 of you needed to be ONE as husband and wife, but also Mother and Father.
From the position I am currently in, the answer to your question is: NO!
It did take 10 yrs for us to finally verbalize what needed to be done.
Do i Care for her any less? No! She is the mother to my kids and Grandmother to my Grandson.
At this moment, in reality cannot see anything to make it work again, like the VERY Early days.
this is how i see my life, when faced with that question…. not how you have to respond…
I wonder if I will ever get closure on this. Part of me just wants him to accept some responsibility but I know he never will. I will have to content myself with building an amicable post-marriage relationship with the man I loved so very much.
oh god…. this was brutal to read and the vid to watch.
I know when my marriage fell apart (after many years of unhappiness and his eventual reacquaintance of an old flame that finally killed us)… he never once asked me to stay; never professed the “love” that i felt should have been there… there might have been a sliver of hope…
I cried reading this and wonder if he ever thinks of “us”…… the 31 years together… 27 married; our “couple” ness, our family….
I am more now that I have ever been: confident, content, happy, calm, constantly looking forward to new challenges and truly, truly happier than I have been my whole life… but still sad for a marriage that failed… when I tried so hard to convince him we were worth it…. obviously he thought not…
Hey Lynn! Thanks for ‘getting it’ x
It doesn’t matter how much happier I am now, I still have that sense of regret over the failure of something that once was so good. And, I guess it’s irritation, but there’s something inside me that is angry because I was the only one who really tried to save it.
Wow, this is so incredibly relevant to my life right now.
I imagine in some aspects that is how The Husband is feeling about our relationship. I know that some of what I’m feeling is expressed through your words.
Though I feel like I’ve the one whose been trying all this time. To love and be supportive. It seems like my finally voicing how I’ve been feeling for such a long, long time in a way that left no room for misinterpretation or ignorance, has caused him to wake up, see what is really happening in our marriage but I’m really beginning to think that maybe it’s too late for him to try and fix this. To realise that all the things that he’s been doing and has done are not okay, to apologise and stop doing them. I have so much anger and resentment there and it’s so difficult to move on from from that. I don’t want to pay him back by hurting him emotionally but that is how he see’s what is happening now.
It’s so complicated. I hate it. I applaud you for having the courage to leave and stick to it. There are so many times that I wish with all my heart that I could have the same courage.
Em.xx
EY – It sounds as though you still have hope that he might wake up and smell the roses. After three years with Ruf, I finally understood that I could never go backwards. If you reach that stage, you will know because it is the point of no return x