I awoke this morning with the same awful feeling in the pit of my stomach that I have grown used to feeling. It’s a tight constricted knot like a fist that has punched my gut and stayed. My head feels light and I feel woozy. That’s a word I never thought I’d write. Woozy. I mentioned to my friend that I felt like I was having a nervous breakdown, an attempt at half-hearted humor, and she said, “I’ve had a nervous breakdown.” “When.’ I asked. “Last year, in January.” I knew that, but had repressed the knowledge of it out of fear, out of a sense of overwhelming shame.
I’m trying to fall out of love, and every instinct I have fights my desire to do so. I’m trying to take myself down from a desperate desire to have one last shot at peace and happiness. I’m trying, and this sounds really odd, to set the object of my affection free from the ravages of a relationship with me. Well, the current ravages, as I’ve already done the major damage in the past. I can’t help thinking that I helped caused the pain and confusion that sent her to the mental ward for a week, and that my recent attentions threaten to send her back.
Question 1. Does she still love me?
Answer. I believe that there are embers, but that several of cruel incredibly self centered behavior has all but destroyed that love. What remains is a sense of gratitude for my help and encouragement; what is lost is a delight or affection for being with me. She truely lights up my life. I’ve told her recently that seeing her brings a smile to my face, that my heart still leaps, that I now yearn more than ever to be with her. When we first met, some four years past, or very soon thereafter, I noticed her eyes widened and brightened when she first saw me every day. They sparkled with anticipation and affection. I no longer see that sparkle in her eye. Oh, it’s there briefly, at least I imagine I see a twinkle in her eyes when she first sees me now, but the glow dies and the dullness, the scaring of her soul comes over her, and that light, that sparkle fades, and the mirrors to her soul fog over with pain. Seeing me must be a awful combination of small joy and great despair. She did love me deeply, she would love me dearly, but she can’t love me now. Self preservation is too strong. She is a survivor.
Question 2. Who is she now?
Answer. That’s easy. she’s not the same woman I met four years ago. She looks as she did, well, actually she’s much softer, much more the mature woman than the ingenue. Her face has softened, her shoulders are more rolled and rounded. She carries herself with more self assurance, at a slower pace. The tension that created her exuberance, her frantic calmness is gone. She is much more a mature personality and that is reflected in her conversation. She seems far more certain that her life will be good, that she will add value to the world. She’s not certain how she will, but that will come with time.Her days of living out fantasies have been replaced with a hope and determination to be real as a woman and a mother, as a student and scholar. She’s still skating on her intelligence, still somewhat of a slacker, but as I say that I realize all the tasks and responsibilities she completes and fulfills everyday. To be totally fair, she’s incredible.
Question 3. Why not me?
Answer. That’s easy. I was an asshole. Selfish, frightened, foolish. For the last three years I’ve been in love…with myself. I always thought we’d be together, she’d come around. Had she, it would have been a disaster. I am awake after decades of sleep, she roused me, but I awoke dreaming. For the last three years, as I have lost everything, house, cars, wealth, work, I have hidden from the world, from truth. I have driven myself to the edge of self-destruction, it wasn’t far to go. She loved me, but never trusted me: I talked a good talk, but I didn’t walk the walk. I didn’t know the steps. Her instincts told her that I was not capable of being a good man, a good husband, a good father. She was right.
Question 4. Why not finally let her go?
Answer. I am afraid. It hurts. I love her, and respect her. She is the only woman in my life of whom I have felt such affection, passion and thankfulness. I must stop thinking of my needs and think of hers. I must stop competing for her hand. It is so hard to think of life without her, yet I really believe she no longer wants me, and wants to go her own way. This is really hard to accept, but truth tells no lies. She is sleeping with another man. Does that sound like she needs you? She says she does not love him, yet she sleeps with him. Does that not tell you of her that she does not want you. It must be that only the smallest memories of our time together holding, no it must be the memory of how I helped her, how I mentored her, that keeps our friendship alive. I lack the courage to break off our friendship, I must find it to free her of me. I am not being honorable, I just don’t want to hurt her anymore.
Question 5. What about self respect?
It’s very hard to have any when begging does no good. Of course, I do maintain my dignity. Not every story has a happy ending. I am becoming a better man because of her, but to what purpose? And then I think, given our relative ages, would it even be fair to marry me? I have at most 20 or so active years. I might be better for her to be with someone who would be with her all her life, to share the grandchildren and maybe the world. I respect my self for having such thoughts. I wish I could spend every day of the rest of her life with her. I am a good man now, I wasn’t when we met. She deserves the best, and can surely do better than I.