To truly love...

[Fettsei]

Hello...

 

It is with a heavy heart that I write tonight. I already described in detail in my post "Great Sorrow in her departure...", how my girlfriend (47) of two and a half years to me (43) abruptly ended our 2 1/2 yr relationship a little over 3 months ago.

 

 

I truly love her, but it is clear that she does not love me. Her actions and inactions testify against her words.

 

About one month ago I did tell her that I could no longer be her friend. She cried. Carnally, it naturally feels instinctual to walk away and never look back when a woman tells you she's excited about "talking" to another man. (Yeah, I'm pretty certain he was lined up before the breakup, and puzzle pieces point to some kind of unfaithfulness.)

 

Spiritually and emotionally, I feel torn and severed somehow still connected in shattered tendrils to her. I know there's nothing that can be said to her. For at this point there's nothing left to be said...

 

My quandary is that I believe all these things I heard and read for years...scriptures...and they don't help. Instead they tear me apart.

 

"Love one another as I have loved you." "Love is patient. Love is kind. Love is not self seeking...hopes all things, endures all things...there is no fear in love. Perfect love casts out all fear."

 

In other words, everyday the torment resides...How do I make - calloused my heart towards someone that I love? How do I intentionally do that to my best friend that I love because she left me for another?

 

Carnally and physically, it makes sense, but spiritually I've loved her from the beginning unconditionally. So to ask myself to walk away and never look back is like pushing a sword in my own heart after the one she already thrust in me.

 

What makes matters worse is I still sometimes see her where I work as she comes by from time to time about her business. We've become strangers who pass by one another...wordless.

 

This was my best friend, the women that my 14 year old son met when he was 11, and my 10 yr old met when she was 7. This was the woman that I invested in post divorce in thoughts of the possibility of building a blended family.

 

Now, this is the woman who post pictures on her Facebook of her face lit up towards a new man. (I unfollowed her, but not unfriended. I don't go on fb anymore as a result.)

 

I just want to express here and release my brokenness. For I carry it quietly within me.

 

I am a child who from the beginning was almost aborted. My birth father signed away his rights to me. I was adopted later by the man I grew to call my Dad. He loved my mother, but my mother did not love him. They divorced when I was in 1st grade.

 

I sought out my birth father at 21. We met just one time. I gave my contact info and he said his family knew nothing of me. I never heard from him again. Of course, this abandonment is a challenge for me.

 

From that time, I was in college and my dream became to have a family. To make right what was wrong. To break the cycle.

 

I courted the girl that would become my wife. We married after three years. We were in love. We had two beautiful children, bought our dream house, and loved our jobs. I thought we were happy.

 

After twelve years of marriage she left me for a man whom she's now married to.

 

That was the second act of abandonment.

 

I learned how to transform my love for her as a wife into my love for her as only the mother of our children. I forgave her. It was the most difficult thing I've ever done.

 

My dream and hopes took a devastating blow. But I remained determined. I believed there was still time. I reviewed carefully in earnest, through counseling, books, prayer, soul searching...the mistakes of my marriage that led her to stray and what faults belonged to her and to me.

 

I set out again dating in the aftermath of that tragedy a year and half away from it. I set to recover.

 

That's when I came across my girlfriend (after dating several women over a year) In time, I believed this was why I had suffered so.

 

I fell into the thought that she was "the one". Her words and actions often said so to me. So it wasn't derived of my own accord.

 

In time, she left for reasons not so clear to me, but there are enough puzzle pieces to see dishonesty and passive aggressive behavior on her part.

 

I thought I had solved the riddle. The love languages, the present listening, the attachment styles, communication (she would start to shut down at times) but no...rejection and abandonment still came to me. Just like my past.

 

So I am now asserting the hollow emptiness of the reality that the very dream and hope of what I wanted never manifested.

 

I remain the bastard, left behind, passed over, measured for a time then poured out like water on the floor, and now I weigh again...what amount is my fault and what is hers.

 

Unlike my former wife, we have no children that bind us.

 

My departing words to her (expressed in a loving way but also a way that showed my solemn hurt) were to please not contact me unless she was willing to give us the chance romantically. I could not be her friend and listen to her talk about this other guy.

 

She cried and said she doesn't say goodbye and that she would talk to me later. I said, "Is this really how you want it?" She said, "This is what's best."

 

So, how do I feel?

 

Confused. I look up to the sky and ask God, "Why?"

 

I think back to the end of my marriage. As my wife played in the shadows with the man that she said was all in my head...I found myself one day going to Home Depot.

 

My exwife is/was a teacher and she expressed that she wanted a voting booth in her classroom. I decided even though I knew all was lost, I would build her one.

 

As I bought the wood and assembled and designed in my garage this voting booth... I heard what I perceive to be God.

 

"Now you know how to love. This is how I love you. This won't save your marriage. But you love anyway. This is just a tiny piece...that you can understand just how much I love you. I love without any return. I give. Greater love has no man than this...that he lay down his life for his friend."

 

I don't know if I made that up in my own head. I don't think so.

 

I always thought laying down your life was like loosing your life in defense of the one you love...it's quite mind blowing to know in my case it meant my beloved would betray me. But I guess that's what was done in the act of crucifixion. Hence the line of thought expressed above.

 

There's a proverb "blows that hurt cleanse away evil as do stripes the inner depths of the heart."

 

These powerful blows...I can barely see as I look up through watered tears.

 

It rips me apart to tell my best friend "Don't speak to me."...to walk away and never look back.

 

In some ways I suppose, I put conditions on my unconditional love for her because I said that. Maybe that's why I feel terrible. Idk.

 

She doesn't deserve to hear what I carry in my heart. That I would have gladly walked to the ends of the earth for her. That should her cancer ever return, I believe God built me to be by her side...and so many more deep things that I will keep to myself.

 

And now, I feel alone. Loneliness lingers. I detach in love in the hope that the loneliness will fade away, but I still remain connected and I feel it when I am physically near her.

 

And I remember the inkling of what God revealed to me in my garage as I gazed upon the voting booth I had so masterfully crafted. (Still in my exwife's classroom,) Now I know what it means to truly love. For when we die to ourselves and love another in such a way that they are free...you might be slammed with blows.

 

Endure and overcome. Idk if I can. I do know I love...and it hurts. I do know my wisdom has increased, but it comes with great sorrow.

 

I know it's a long post. I hope my words can be heard. The days are long. I'm tired.

 

I took my kids bowling tonight. They live with me half the time. It's just the three of us again.

 

I don't have the heart to bring them around another woman. It seems the family I thought and wished for has no place for a woman by my side who chooses me as I am.

 

At this point, idk if I believe it can happen for me.

[Chelsea54]

You're a wonderful writer.

I'm sorry you're in so much pain.

Your life and opportunities are not over.

[Fettsei]

Thanks for reading Chelsea. I have great trouble seeing the light right now.

 

I move day to day. I get everything done and met. But when it comes to my own time, I go on a date and function somewhat detached, or I hike alone.

 

I don't look forward to things for myself as I once did.

[Chelsea54]

Perhaps it's a good time to just be focused on the needs and happiness of your children and leave yourself open to accepting happiness in any form when it comes to you. Someone told me that end of relationship(s) just means that the relationship had completed--meaning you and the other person had received all there was to gain from what you had. Try to focus on what is good. Do what is therapeutic for yourself. Perhaps creating wood creations for your children's high school plays.....for example.

[Fettsei]

Yes, I agree. The times I'm with my children are happy. The three of us still feel a little strange. From my kids perspective, they asked for like s month and a half over the summer when we were going to see my girlfriend and her son.

 

Through texting, I asked her if we could tell our kids together but she didn't want to. She said it was too hard. So eventually I explained to my kids in general terms about the breakup. They were devastated and it hurt that they had no opportunity to say goodbye to them.

 

I feel terrible about this. My ex told me she does too. But she only asked how my kids were when I mentioned that she hadn't even asked about my kids in a brief phone conversation 2 months after the breakup...

 

I guess my struggle is just thinking in my mind, "What was real and genuine and what was not over the 2 1/2 years."

 

I try to get into my art, and I do help my kids with school. It seems I have become more introverted. I have withdrawn more than I normally would.

 

Football is a great escape on the weekends to watch for now. I go out into my city to meet new friends, but mostly it's surface conversations. Most of my good friends are married and focused on their families. I have dinners with them, but keep it to a minimum. It's great for my kids to play and hang out.

 

So I'm getting out, but I am thinking I have major trust issues now when it comes to thinking about someone romantically. I am trying to think and work through that. I am not ready to be with anyone.

 

So I have only gone on a few dates. Enough to know I'm not in a place to do that.

[Chelsea54]

As for the dating, there's nothing wrong with dipping your toe in once in a while to test your readiness!. All of what you're doing sounds great for keeping yourself busy.

As far as ruminating about sorting the truth-- It might be a waste of your energy and try to get to some acceptance that it is over for the foreseeable future. I'm going to guess that the two facts 1)She is with another man and 2)Your kids are not unscathed--are making it harder for you to move forward more quickly.

I'm not one to know how to control thoughts, but my suggestion when you're spending time ruminating is to keep on one subject at a time. Or, perhaps start a written journal with each "subject" kept separately. For me-- once I see that I've written down an idea-- that makes my brain not have to keep replaying & reworking the scenario(s). Sometimes if you're writing things out you can arrive to intelligent conclusions-albeit potentially wrong-- lol.

Good luck.