When Will You Make Me Cry?

After about a year together, the man sitting in the seat next to me made me cry. That’s 362 days longer than in my marriage. It was three days in when my now-ex said cruel words that broke my heart for the first out of a million times. So I must be doing a better job than before.

But today it doesn’t feel like it. I sit in the car with the man I gave my heart to and I hear about how much I am failing him. I hear about how he thought I was more “into” what he was “into”, how much fun I “used to be” and how much I had changed. There is no question-asking, nor any consideration for my life experiences of late.

He doesn’t think about the wear and tear of an eternal divorce, the messiest this county has ever seen. He doesn’t think about the challenge of my full-time schooling, teenagers, and work-life.

He and I had met during the lockdown. I had lost my job to Covid, schooling was all online, and I was homeschooling the kids. Life’s pace had slowed, almost to a stop. We had more time back then. We had nothing but time. But now, everything has ramped up to a normal pace, with a healthy dose of Covid anxiety heaped on top of it. It’s not the healthiest I’ve been, to say the least.

But, at this moment, those are not his concern. He is only thinking about himself and that he isn’t going to have his girlfriend with him on a “let’s drop everything and go” trip this coming weekend. I would love to be able to go with him. What woman wouldn’t? A weekend away with the man she loves, hiking, camping, and sleeping in?

But it’s too much right now to try to prep in just a few hours, be gone, and then recover the house and back-log of issues left undone. Maybe next time?

I’m crying a lot more lately and it’s no surprise as to why that is. Anxiety with the Covid mess, wintertime upon us, lack of outside time, overwhelmed with lack of financial stability, too much schoolwork, teenagers (need I expound?), insurance messes around a car accident, derecho winds stealing half my home’s shingles, dog-sitting (yeah, my bad), and so little time for long baths and talks with friends, let alone boyfriend time.

And I wonder…is crying normal in relationships? If so, how much crying is normal? As the oldest sister in a ginormous family, I have seen plenty of tears. I have seen the tears of my mother, my grandmothers, my sisters, and my sisters-in-law. I have seen my girlfriends cry about their husbands. Sometimes it’s due to abuse, and other times, as they watch their partners neglect themselves and fall into poor health.

Each of these women married men… men that I love. They are good men, trustworthy and honest, hardworking and fun. And yet, hard times happen. Oftentimes, we women get yelled at. We get told that we ask for too much. We have needs that are not met. Even in the best of partnerships, this happens. I am sure of it.

But here I am at the precipice…at the (possibly) near-end of another relationship to a man who has loved me as best he could. I have cried enough, I say. I say it a lot, mostly to myself, because I need to hear it. And still, the tears come.

Why is it so hard to love? It seems that this is THE existential question of all times.

Crying for me has become the norm I cannot accept. I am not depressed, not seasonally, nor otherwise. But grieving relationships has been the norm for many, many years. My marriage, a lover…now a boyfriend, whom I still love deeply.

Why am I grieving then, if I still love him? I’m not sure, but I suspect it’s because what was, is no more. My hopes at the beginning of the relationship have required many shifts and adjustments.

I have one question that I want to be answered, though. And I wonder if any of you out there know the answer. It is:

Why do people who are not ready to be in stable, loving relationships put themselves “out there”, advertising for such?

Not that any one person is a finished piece of art. No one is. But for those of us who have been in therapy for years, have done the grueling work of introspection and self-work, journaling, walking, meditating, getting more schooling, working harder, etc…how do we know if you are being authentic BEFORE we fall in love with you?

This level of discernment eludes me, apparently. I need to get to “next-level intuition” status. In the meantime, I seem to be suffering at the hands of the one who needs to be waited upon.

I am tired of waiting for someone to see me and love me as I am. I am tired of waiting to see if the someone I am with will be that someone.

After 25 years of marriage, I finally released my then-husband from that role. Sure, it took almost 3 years to get rid of the bastard, but the process taught me a lot about myself…and him as well.

Should I be waiting? In the meantime, should I be crying? I don’t feel like it’s fair to put myself through this again while my children are watching so closely. I know it’s not fair. They deserve to see their mother happy. Do tears infer unhappiness?

But, in the meantime, I ask myself some hard questions. But I have one for you…the next man, whoever you are.

When will you make me cry? When will your words fill me with shame for not being what you want? When will I feel like I am not enough, yet again?

Because heaven knows, at the beginning of the love affair, you will say all of the right words. You will tell me that you see my heart and that it is beautiful. You will say you want to care for me, love me, and even help me clean the attic. You will tell me how much I deserve to be happy, finally. You will tell me that you are that man…you are the man who will see it through, that you won’t give up and disappear or have excuses like the others. You want to see my dreams come true…or encourage me to dream again in the first place.

You know all of the words and have likely said them before, to someone else. Thanks for practicing.

But, there will come a time, I am pretty sure, that it will change. Those words will show their power in the opposite way, reaching and grasping for my throat, stealing my voice, and making me feel small. And tears will flow.

I don’t want to lose my voice again. I don’t want to be small. I want to be loved. I want to be loved into something more gorgeous and powerful than I can even imagine for myself. For that, there are no tears necessary.

I know love can do this. But will it…dare it offer that to me?

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This post was previously published on medium.com.

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