I think you think love is lost, but I can still see its colour and shape with my outsiders perspective.
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“Only in the agony of parting do we look into the depths of love.” – George Eliot
I have a deeply rooted tiny kernel of sadness in me — how long will it stay? I completely accept its presence with compassion and there is no struggle for us to coexist. Still, I long for the day when the dull grief might slink away in cowardice instead of occasionally blooming in my throat. My remnant of residual sadness is my reaction to not being allowed to fight for my marriage. My ex-husband went through his decision making process alone. The abrupt ending without a protracted and gruelling period in our marriage where we slogged it out, still occasionally hurts.
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“Romantic love is an illusion. Most of us discover this truth at the end of a love affair or else when the sweet emotions of love lead us into marriage and then turn down their flames.” – Thomas Moore
When I see you carelessly dismiss your marriage I get so frustrated. I want to shake your shoulders and scream at you to wake up! It hurts me to watch you cast ignorance and disdain onto the very act of creation you once desperately wanted. I can see the train wreck that is only a few months or a few years down the road, why can’t you? How can you not see the flashing red lights or hear the thunderous horn blaring its warning as it bares down on you? If you can’t see it, I will give you my eyes, if you don’t recognize the threat, I will share my perspective on what I have learned, too late. I will tell you my story and regale you with all the mistakes I made during my marriage.
“As we advance in life it becomes more and more difficult, but in fighting the difficulties the inmost strength of the heart is developed.” – Vincent Van Gogh
“Our greatest weakness lies in giving up. The most certain way to succeed is always to try just one more time.” – Thomas A. Edison
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I want to fight for your marriage with all the might and resources I would have thrown at my own if I could have. I want to fight for the redemption in your union that I will never see in mine. I have tirelessly spent the last two years thinking and reading and learning what might have gone wrong in my marriage and I want to give you the courage, strength and weapons to fight off the apathy you are cloaked in. I think you believe the state of separation in your marriage is normal, inevitable even. I don’t see that though. I very much see two people floundering in discomfort wanting to get back to love but unsure of which direction it is in.
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“Love is whatever you can still betray. Betrayal can only happen if you love.” – John le Carre
I see you squandering away this beautiful gift of love, partnership, and connection you have been given to hold sacred and precious. I see you chipping away at the foundation of your marriage with tiny treasons on untruths, withholding, and score-keeping. I see you taking for granted the stability and solidity of your union, the same way I did. Perhaps you believe this state of separation within a marriage is the norm. Or maybe you believe this is a season to ride out and the debris that is littering your landscape won’t carry over into the next. You are repeating the mistakes of millions before you, setting yourself up for the final act.
“Our greatest weakness lies in giving up. The most certain way to succeed is always to try just one more time.” – Thomas A. Edison
You rebuff my cautionary tales and unwanted advice on how to possibly start righting the wrongs. I think you don’t want to believe that my mistakes could be your mistakes. Are you afraid to drop your sword and shield in case your armour is pierced? Are you lazy and complacent, just accepting what is and settling with no effort? Are you tired by life and overwhelmed at the thought of what it would take to repair the damage? Are you shut down because you fear rejection? Do you want to cast blame and play the victim role?
I am being very tough on you, I know. I do so because whatever the cause of your lack of action, it won’t change the inevitable outcome that is rolling your way. Hear me, there is no comfort blaming the failure of my marriage on someone else. The mechanics of why the marriage ended becomes irrelevant over time, it turns to smoke lingering in the air that will eventually dissipate. The end result doesn’t change; love died.
“There are many ways of going forward, but only one way of standing still.” – Franklin D. Roosevelt
Why must you remake the wheel for yourself? Why won’t you accept me helping you? There are so many resources available to you if you would just let go of your ego and submit. The cost of your mistakes being left unchecked could be everything you know about your life. Would you find it easier to take action if I took blame off the table and told you it doesn’t matter who did what in the past, who laid which brick in the wall growing higher and thicker between you? Every moment you have an opportunity to make a better choice for your coupling. How can I make it easier for you to take the hand I am offering?
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“Our challenge is to understand each other.” – Helen Fisher.
There is not a single society that doesn’t have romantic love, yet, “love isn’t always a happy experience,” notes anthropologist Helen Fisher. She refers to romantic love as madness, a drive, an addiction, or an obsession. Perhaps the dissatisfaction you are experiencing in your marriage is the easing of the obsessions grip? If you have lost your drive, urge or need for the feeling of love, let Ms Fisher help you, help yourself, since I seem to be unable. She helped me in the months after my marriage ended.
I will continue to fight for your marriage in small sneaky ways because I suspect that by seeing your love continue and one day bloom full again, my tiny seed of sadness will finally crumble.
“If I can stop one heart from breaking, I shall not live in vain.” – Emily Dickinson
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Photo:Flickr/Kaz Vorpal