Falling Apart

I saw a quote the other day, and it couldn’t more accurately represent my life.

“I only write when I’m falling in love or falling apart”.

Falling apart is where I am now.

My marriage is over. And it is the most painful, heart-wrenching, sick to my stomach, can’t even take a breath without it feeling like my chest is going to crush my insides hurt that I have ever felt. I can’t eat, can’t sleep without stupid amounts of Xanax, and can’t stand to be around people or be alone or think or talk or sit in silence. It’s all terrible.

I think what makes this so hard is that I love this man with my entire being, and I didn’t see it coming. I guess I should’ve. Signs were there. But I believed in him and us and love, and all those things I never thought could exist. For us, I thought it was real. I thought we were the exception. I thought that he truly loved me, and we would fight this world together and win. I was so, so wrong. Painfully, awfully, terribly wrong. And I’m paying dearly for it now.

A year ago – we were in a bad place. And it wasn’t just him. It was us. I was being selfish and hanging on to things and people that weren’t good for us. He was drinking too much and only considering his own needs. It was bad, and it hurt, and for a brief moment I considered giving up. But I love this man, and I promised him “today and always, now and forever, good and bad”. And I meant it from the bottom of my soul. So I fought for us. And I talked him into fighting for us as well.

I took a long, hard look at myself and what I was going to make things worse instead of better. I can be selfish and demanding, I can expect perfection from people, and I can make them feel like they weren’t good enough. I had to really confront those things about myself, and really work one day at a time to change them. I started saying “thank you” more. Being more supportive and less judgmental. I tried to be encouraging and understanding, even in moments when I really wanted to tell him to “man up”. Based on advice from our counselor, I hoped that if I began treating him like he was enough and I was proud of him and respected him, that he would feel it and begin making choices and life decisions that were worth respecting.

I tried really hard to explain my needs to him in ways that didn’t make him feel worthless, and give him concrete examples of what I needed without being demanding or making him feel like he could never accomplish those things. But I must have failed. Because his repeated battle cry is that “he would never be good enough for me”. Which is so far from the truth, and I’ve tried so hard to avoid doing things that would make him feel that way, but I guess it just wasn’t enough.

I should be angry. And for moments, I am. I supported this man for 3 years. I pushed him to follow his dreams. When we met, he was a waiter in a restaurant living in his dad’s condo.  I pushed him to get his CFI, spent hours studying with him, encouraged him as he build hours as a flight instructor, and helped get him to the point where he could be hired by the airlines. All while paying 95% of the bills alone, and taking care of everything. He has never gotten me a birthday present or anniversary present. I can count the number of times he has paid for dinner in the past 3 years on 2 hands.  And it sucked. A Lot. But at least he was moving towards a more stable, successful life.

Except when the time came – the bottom fell out.

Without ever talking to me about it, he took a job that required him to be in St Louis for at least 4 months, and then he would be based somewhere besides Texas after that. Then he told me he wasn’t going on the trip we had planned for months the night before we were supposed to leave. I went to Europe alone, while he packed up and moved to St Louis. I spent 3 weeks begging him to come back, to work things out. He did. And the past 4 months have been monumentally hard as he has been struggling though school and I’ve been struggling trying to keep everything afloat at home. But I had felt like we were in a good place, finally. Not perfect. But good. I had agreed to move to Raleigh with him, where he would be based, and was even looking forward to our new adventure.

We went away for a weekend to Orlando during Valentine’s Day, and I found out he was still lying about me, about our relationship, and about our life. It started me questioning if I was just being used, or if he really us to work things out and keep building our life together in Raleigh.

Well, I got the official answer from him last Thursday. I got home from work and he was drunk after spending all afternoon at a buddy’s house, instead of doing what he had told me he was going to do. I was upset, but it wouldn’t have been a blow up fight until he lied about it and then said he was leaving. That he hated me, that he never loved me, and that he was done. He grabbed his suitcase and left. And I haven’t heard from him since, except for a hateful voice message he left me because in his drunken state he broke some China that belonged to his grandmother and somehow decided that was my fault.

So that’s that. 3 years down the drain. I got used. He got what he wanted from me while he got where he wanted to be, and then he bailed. And I’m left asking what the hell happened. How did we end up here? How could I have been so stupid? How could I have given this man my entire heart and soul when he so clearly cared only about himself?

Those are the questions I’m not going to get answers to. But that haunt me every second of every day.

I know I can’t keep doing this. I know he will continue to hurt me. I know he doesn’t love me. But that doesn’t make me love him less. It just makes me feel scammed and used and cheap. My heart is SCREAMING for him, but my head is telling me the best thing I can do is run as far away from him as possible.

So thank god for friends that provide distraction, alcohol to numb the pain, and Xanax to keep me sane.

That’s the best I can do right now.