I was home sick yesterday.  The night before I couldn’t sleep.  I felt like my insides were empty and the cloud of nothingness that had been trailing behind me had finally consumed me.  I knew if I didn’t do it and didn’t do it soon I would be lost.  I spent the day at home alone relaxed for the first time in a long time.  I slept, I cried, I thought over everything.  I had thought I pulled myself together when he got home but there I sat at the bottom of the stairs waiting for him.  Maybe if he didn’t spend extra time outside after puling into the garage I would have been fine and just faked the happiness I had been for two years.  But he was clearing snow and ice and after 10 minutes I was a wreck again.  He walked into the house and saw me sitting there.

“How do you feel?”

“As good as I ever will”

“What does that mean?”

I looked at him, tears welling up in my eyes “Physically I’m fine, but just for now I’m depressed and you know it.”

“Depressed? Why?”

He really hadn’t noticed?  Everyone who meets me knows it, friends who are 1500 miles away know it, how can he not notice? “I am tired of faking it, I’m tired of playing happy”

“What is wrong?”

“You know what is wrong.  It’s been wrong for two years, you know this.”

The look on his face wasn’t shock, wasn’t pain, it was nothing. Two years ago I said to him that I think we need to start marriage counselling and he claims that was his wake up call.  He apparently hit snooze and now the alarm is going off again.

“What are you saying?” He begged.  He wanted to hear the words.  The words I didn’t want to say but I knew I had to.

“I want a divorce.”

At that moment I felt a weight lift off of me, my heart started beating again, the knife in my stomach had gone, I started to feel like me again.

What followed was tears, anger, blame, shouting, emotional dumping…

“I’ve done everything I could to make you happy” he kept saying

When he would listen again I told him “Only I can make myself happy.  I have spent the last 41 years of my life trying to make everyone around me happy and I get nothing from it. I have to do it for me first.”

I have taken the steps to learning to be selfish and he didn’t like that at all.  I pointed out that he had things that made him happy and I had things that made me happy but we did them alone without the other person involved at all. I followed him from room to room, then just stayed onthe same floor with him.  Finally he went to take a bath, I gave him alone time, when he got done I asked him how he was. He hugged me and begged me to try again, to give him another chance, to not leave him.  He asked me to read "Men are from Mars, Women are from Venus" he thinks this is a communications problem.  I told a friend this and she said "Princesses* are from Jupiter".  Maybe that’s true, maybe I’m from another planet altogether because I am married to a great guy, ask anyone who has met him.  But it isn’t enough.

I set up the guestroom bed while he was in the bath.  I told him I assumed he would want me to sleep there and he told me that he never wanted me to.  He apologized that we had separate hobbies, I told him we have more than separate hobbies, we have separate lives.  We are two people living in the same house, sharing the same bed and we don’t know each other.  He said he didn’t want to lose his friend, I told him I lost mine after we got married, maybe someday we will be friends again but we aren’t going to be as long as we are married.

I told him I wanted to go take a bath too, I did and when I was done he was online playing with his buddies.  I got onto my computer in another room, talked to a few friends and took care of some online work I had to do.  I know he won’t tell anyone, I told several people.  It’s how we both communicate and deal with things.  I turn to friends for support, he turns to friends for distraction.

I slept in the master bedroom last night.  I know it’s possible for 2 people to share a king size bed and not know the other one is there.  This morning when he left for work, I saw him in the hall, I was still in bed.  He was standing there trying to figure out what to do.  He normally would kiss my forehead and say “I love you” instead he went downstairs and left.

I know I may never hear those three words again.  I hear them from friends but that’s not the context I mean.  I have no delusions of there being a Mr. Right out there for me.  Right now, all I want is to look at the woman in the mirror and tell her I love her.  Lately I haven’t recognized her, I haven’t even liked her.

Today at work I will tell my boss, I will call my real estate lawyer find out if his office handles divorce or if he can give me a referral.  I will talk to a divorce lawyer and find out what lies ahead.  I will also call my company’s Employee Assistance Program and find a therapist.  Even though I feel fine right now, I don’t want that cloud of nothingness to take over again.  I asked him to see someone too, I don’t know if he will.

This Fairytale has ended, but the new book hasn’t started yet.  I’m stuck in an Epilogue right now.

*Friend really used my name here