I need desperately to write again. It has been hard for me to put anything down since I moved out of my boyfriend’s house. He wasn’t just my boyfriend; that sounds too trivial. He was my companion and my partner. I had been reticent to move in with him, and embrace the home and life he offered me, waiting to be “thrown under the bus,” as I used to jokingly and not so jokingly say to him. His being a widow made me cautious and my inability to succeed, in my 42 years, at finding a partner, made me even more cautious. However, as time passed, I found myself willing to take the chance and let myself wholly and completely embrace him and his family. The fact he failed to completely embrace me back should have been a red flag, but the fact he was a widow, and had some heavy demands placed on him by one of his children, and just had an overall reserved personality, allowed me to excuse some of his behaviors. I enjoyed what I had and allowed it to just be what it was. I don’t need lavish praise and constant attention to feel valid in a relationship. I just need my partner to be consistent and faithful. And he was both.
After a wonderful start in this relationship, my partner faced a medical issue, one exclusive to men, and had a minor surgery to correct the problem. I believe this surgery left him with an imbalance in his system that began to affect our relationship. I also believe that despite his assurance that he was ready to move on, five years was not long enough between his wife’s passing and our relationship. For those of us that haven’t lost a spouse, we might think that is enough time, but this lovely man needs not only time, but some counseling as well. He and his children would benefit from that but in particular, and with the way his mind works, he especially should have had some assistance after losing his childhood sweetheart and partner of 24 years. He was surly ready to feel connected to another person again, but he was not ready to connect.
He and I managed to build a nice life together all the while failing at our relationship. We build a garage, planted a garden, held a wedding for his daughter, owned a dog, took several extensive trips, made feasts, sat together every night for dinner and slept in the same bed every night, maintained a home together and much more, all the while neglecting to grow and nurture us. Our focus was on his family, and his children, his job and my schooling. Despite that, I was and am very much in love with him. Knowing he was, with all of our flaws between us, at the end of my day, even in his worst depression and walking through the door hunched and drawn, he was my comfort and warm spot. Knowing he was there was all I needed to feel contentment and peace. I trusted he would work to resolve the issues that plagued him, because I knew that he knew that I was worth it to him in the long run.
This assumption was my fatal mistake. I woke up one Sunday morning about a month ago and was told he could no longer do it. I was loved, but perhaps not the right way and he was not happy. Even now tears stream down my face as I write these words. Not happy… I don’t know what this is that he is looking for. I’m not a happy or a sad person, I am a content person with friends, family and loved one’s that I invest my time in and find pleasure with. My soul is at peace spiritually. Happy is a feeling that is fleeting. Happy is what he remembers of the times with his wife, and I am not his wife. I cannot fill her shoes and I cannot try to compete with 24 years and two children together. I am, or I was, his companion, his partner, his girlfriend. Within 30 minutes of being told I was perhaps not loved the right way, I was packing the few things I allowed myself to have at his lovely home, the home I had made my own, and driving back to my family’s cold warehouse, where I have a cold room, in a cold apartment. When his wife died, his life was ripped away from him and he was stripped of his identity. He was no longer her husband and no longer a husband and wife raising two teenagers, but instead a single man with two kids. I can’t begin to pretend to understand his pain, but I do understand my own, because when I woke up that Sunday, I was the partner and companion to a man with depression issues and a man who needs to sort things out, but a man I love dearly. I was completely vested in his family and his needs, but within minutes of that horrible conversation, I was alone and watching a year and a half of my life disappear from me.
It turns out, despite his protestations that his depression is not a result of his tragic loss from years ago, that his wife is still the desire of his heart. I am not. I don’t know what I was to him. You see, he is a prolific writer and blogs very occasionally. I came across his blog quite by accident very shortly after we started seeing each other. His most recent post, from last night, details his loss and is as fresh as if it happened yesterday. There is no mention of me filling the void for the last year and a half, and in my female-minded way, I am quite hurt that I was so insufficient for him. Of course, this may not be true. What is in his head now, with the impending birth of his first grandchild, the coming nuptials of his son and the looming anniversary of his wedding anniversary and two days later, his wife’s death, is likely dominating his thoughts – I am certain that I am the least of them. Perhaps after the next couple of months, when the ground thaws, and events pass, he will think of the things we shared and the life we had together. I know I will think of these things, and the things I will miss, every day for months to come, if not years.
I don’t know what the future holds for me or for him, but I am not the enemy, and I don’t want him gone from my life, and despite his moods and his angst and even his occasional frustration with me, for whatever shortcoming I was displaying, he is still the one thing I would like to know is at the end of my day. He is a good man, and a kind soul. I know he misses his wife when he comes home from work and I know he misses her beside him at night, I know he misses his whole life. I know this because I miss him the same way, even though we only had 16 months between us and not 24 years.
Another exhausting day of nothing. Seriously, that is how these days feel. At the end of the day I have little to show for it but am completely spent. Tomorrow I go to observe dad’s physical therapy in order to show my brothers how to help him with it when he gets home. He has agreed to stay at the hospital until Friday and the doctors have agreed to sign off on his release if he can get himself into his wheel chair, and to his car, safely.
