Dear Lena,
Yesterday was a horrible day. It really sucked. My mother had a car accident and called me one the phone upset and asking me to come down and help her out. As I pulled into her driveway I got the text from you saying you had gone to a lawyer to initiate the divorce process.
I can’t say that the text came out of the blue; after all, we have been separated for five weeks and have had zero communication for almost two weeks. As I read that text my stomach churned. I almost threw up in the car and I felt like someone had hit me in the groin with a 20 lbs sledgehammer. I felt dizzy and my arrhythmia instantly kicked into high gear. I felt like I did when I shot myself in the chest. I stood outside my car for a minute expecting to collapse. I really felt like I might die right then and there. I am not that lucky.
I know that all you did was call the lawyer. I know you have every right to move forward with a divorce and with your life. I know all of this in my head. I can even give several reasons why we didn’t work out in the past or why it wouldn’t make sense for us to try again. I know we were both unkind to each other at times and especially at the very end. I know I made mistakes. I am well aware of my many imperfections. I know living with me is hard… apparently impossible. I can be grumpy and depressed, sullen and removed, angry and loud, introverted and un-affectionate… I know all of this. Yet despite knowing all of this, I am emotionally devastated. I feel as if I am dying inside.
Yesterday I also realized it wasn’t just the romantic aspects of our relationship that I missed; although I definitely do miss that too. I miss our friendship… the one we had at the beginning and the first few years of our marriage. I miss talking to you about your research. Once you started the new job we lost that connection. So many things changed four and half years ago.
I know there is no going backwards in life. I just wish we could find some different way forward that included us rather than a divided divorced us. There were many good times, yet the bad times seem to crowd out those good memories. I keep thinking about Montreal and Hilton Head… strawberry picking and trips to our river. Even the “little” things like holding you are night when we went to sleep and bringing you coffee in the morning.
I also don’t understand how we both can say the other is the love of our lives, yet we can’t find some way to make things work. If you are the love of my life and I am the love of your life… and we can’t find a way to stay married then love is worthless and I don’t ever want to be in love again. I guess that despite the rough exterior, I am still that kid who believed that love could conquer all. If love doesn’t conquer all… If we, with our love, can’t conquer all… then what is the point of love? What’s the point of life without a love than can indeed conquer all?
