My marriage ended tonight. It would seem that it should be some cataclysmic explosion or some other noisy catastrophe to bring what it took thirty years to build crashing down.
Surely, after all that time, there is something foundational, something anchored that would provide some resistance to the collapse. There must be fragments of love or a dream of a shared future that when it is all stripped bare call out with a glimmer of hope that enough remains to rebuild or try again.
But not this time.
The soil once rich with love and promise has been dried in the heat of lost passion, missed opportunities, and sheer neglect into a hardened field of dust. So, when the end arrived it was more of a last almost silent gasp of the fragile dreams once held that are now just not there.
The Final Straw
He crossed a boundary couple of days ago. This is not a new issue. He had done it once before and I told him in no uncertain terms that if he did it again, I was out.
It took a while before I had worked through my anger and I wanted to have a conversation and not an explosion. That outcome would only be possible if I showed up to the conversation from a place of calm.
The Hard Conversation
The conversation quickly eroded to a listing of all the things that are wrong with me. As he explained that my bar of “acceptable perfection” is always way beyond his striving, it was clear to me that we see life in fundamentally different ways.
I don’t see it as a mountain climb, but rather as a river that simply changes course in the seasons of life. I am not the person I was at 25 or 35 or even 45 and neither is he. A relationship requires growth and change to be healthy. It is not about completing a project and marking it off as done. He sees relationships as a task to be completed.
So I asked, “What is the ideal marriage for you?”
He starts his story with the dawn of time and the social norms of the nuclear family. He continues to describe raising our daughter as the sole purpose of our relationship. While I love our daughter and being her mom, that is not a marital relationship.
What I want is a partner who loves me and wants to grow with me. I want someone who doesn’t judge and is willing to be real. I want someone who will let me love them. I want someone who sees love and relationship as joy and is willing to do the work to be healthy.
It was becoming increasingly clear that the canyon between us was far deeper and wider than I ever understood before. My attempts at repair and connection were like shooting arrows into the abyss and never having any hope of landing anywhere near the target.
The End
The final gasp came later in the evening at home. Sitting in our all too familiar war room posts, he showed me who he truly is.
In a previous round of trying to save this marriage, we discussed what he could do to help me know he sees me and loves me. I asked if when I get home from the grocery store if he could help me unload the groceries. There is a logistics reasoning to this request because we live almost an hour from the store but it also is just one of those things that help me feel loved. Something he could do to help me simply because I asked.
The roadblock that he described when I asked if he could help me with this consistently was that he is always in the middle of something when I get home from errands. So, I offered to send a text when I leave the store so he can be prepared to help. This seemed to work for everyone and that has been the way things have been for many months now. I am always grateful and express that each time.
But tonight — that was simple request was the last gasping breath of our marriage. He brought it up as an example of how I attempt to control and manipulate him. He was vile, nasty, and animated as he describes how unreasonable this “command” is from me. He resents me for asking and my text notifying him is me nitpicking, henpecking, and controlling him. This is me being demanding and no other man would put up with this level of laziness or my requirement to “hop to it like a trained monkey” when I pull into the driveaway.
That was it. That is what broke me.
Through tears, I reminded him that this had come up as my request for how he could love and show up for me. It seemed like a simple thing and it was important to me. I had given up long ago asking for the big things like affection that I truly think are foundational to a healthy marriage. I have asked for many things and he said no. I honored his many refusals and didn’t ask again.
So in my attempt to allow him to love me as he chooses and be open to accepting his love in whatever form it showed up left me with his help unloading the car from a grocery trip for our family as his show of love.
I was willing to see that act as a kernel of love and connection. A small place where he would choose to show up for me simply because I needed him to and simply because I asked.
Tonight, I learn that he hates me for asking and that it has all been done from a place of resentment and he literally despises me for inconveniencing him in this way.
There is no love here.
Moving On…But with Lessons Learned
I am not too much and I am not asking unreasonable things. I am a whole person with emotional, physical, mental, and spiritual needs. I have tried my very best to be a good partner and bring the best version of myself into this relationship. I am not perfect and will own my failings in all of this.
This truly is the story of when you know better, you will do better. As I have come to understand how patterns have developed in my own life, I have done the work to be healthier. I have tried to have the grace to see the struggles he has with a lens of positive intent and be generous in my view that he may be doing his best.
But what the final gasp showed me is quite simply he does not love me and any attempt that I have made to show him what I need and how he can be my partner has been futile. He does not desire me or a relationship with me and has only contempt for who I am.
I suppose I have been a fool for trying all these years, but I can leave this marriage with the full knowledge that I did everything in my power to make this work. The hard bottom line that was found today is that I can’t make him love me or want me. There is no need to pretend any longer that there can be something that is simply not here.
He keeps a scorecard, driven by his worldview, of who he thinks he is supposed to be and measures himself against these impossible standards.
Turns out, he has one for me, too.
Though he can’t articulate what is there, what he wants, or why, it is the comparison to others that defines him and how he should relate. It is this invisible companion that has left our marriage in ruins. This unspoken set of guides that he measures himself, his worth, and what is important to him.
He is not interested in relating to me or who I am. He is only interested in how I measure up to a standard that he can’t even define.
Not surprisingly, his evaluation of me is the same as his evaluation of himself, failing and not measuring up. As much as I want him to be healthy with a better understanding of himself, he chooses to cling to this invisible measuring tape.
And after all these years of trying to get to a different outcome, this time I am going to leave him with the one he chooses.
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This post was previously published on MEDIUM.COM.
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