Day Seven, Entry One

A week ago, my wife proposed a fear:

What if, when she is out of town for the next month, she doesn't miss me romantically? What if she doesn't miss me at all?

"Well... I would guess that means that something is wrong."

A week ago, discussion started between the two of us, discussing plans for separation. She has been unhappy in our relationship for about a year. She's not herself anymore. This isn't what she wanted. She doesn't know what she wanted.

She loves me... but she's not IN LOVE with me. Not anymore.

"I feel like we've become really great friends and awesome roommates."

The words that stabbed me in our two viewings of DATE NIGHT have come back to haunt me. This time, they are stabbing me directly.

It is an odd feeling to feel your heart break. There were cracks all along. Why doesn't she do this? Why won't she feel this way? Why is she leaving? What are we fighting for now? Those cracks, though, go unnoticed until it all just hits the ground and shatters.

My wife and I are separating.

We are separating and I am still in love.

As the week has gone by, I have gone through a roller coaster of emotions from the obvious hurt, sadness, depression, anger, pain, rage, guilt, self-loathing, to the odd occasional senses of relief and satisfaction and acceptance. Those three are fleeting. Soon they are swept away in the self-loathing tidal wave again.

Initially, she had expressed the possibility (small as it was) of reconciliation. Say she does miss me. Why separate if she misses me? That sentiment turned into one of self-awareness.

"I know myself and it's just not --- I don't think it is going to happen."
"Would you say that I even have a 1% chance of that?"
"No."

There is an odd sense of support, though. She is coaching me through this with the hopes that we will be friends. A Demi Moore-Bruce Willis kind of divorce. Right now, I'm feeling more of the Alec Baldwin-Kim Basinger vibe... mixed with my being a pussy.

As mad as I am with her, I do not want to know what my life is like without her in it in some capacity. Because of that, I am setting myself up for nothing but pain.

One day at a time. That's how people get through their problems. That's what my plan is. I am starting this blog as a record of my shattering and my eventual rebirth. I will discuss whatever is on my mind with no fear of who reads it. I will paint an honest portrait of what this is like for me. At times, I will probably describe my ex in harsh terms. At other times, I know I will do nothing but sing her praises. There really is a wonderful woman in there. She can't help that her feelings for me changed. I did all that I could and I know I am not the cause for this.

There will be times where I paint myself in both sympathetic and unsympathetic lights. This is my voice. I can do what I want with it. If there is a day in which I particularly hate myself, I will speak of it here. My hope is that by the end of the entry, I can come to terms with the emotion and get it out.

Most of all, this is my point of view. I am a man. Men, I feel, are unfairly vilified in life. We are chauvinists only after one thing. We move from girl to girl never taking feelings into account. A relationship ends with us probably because we did something wrong.

I am not a chauvinist. I want more than just one thing. I have had three girlfriends (five if we stretch terminology a little) in my whole life. I have loved seven women in my life. Five of them, the way an adolescent boy thinks he loves women, one love for convenience of companionship, and one love, the way you think you are supposed to love. That, lose-my-breath, heart-beats-faster, give-it-all-and-do-anything-for-her feeling of love that makes you want to believe in romance of all kinds. That kind of love I have found only once.

That kind of love is sleeping in the other bedroom while I finish up my first blog at 4:30 AM. That kind of love is helping me find the best deal on my own apartment. That kind of love doesn't live around here anymore. Instead, it's just me: a boy with a crush.

Same as I have always been.