SwiftHeart

I am starting to think this god-awful mess is for the best.

That, in and of itself, is terrifying to me on some level. Whatever part of me committed completely. Whatever part of me put the relationship, the family, our kids, his kids, him before everything else. Whatever part that is . . . it’s shifting. Like a pre-quake tremor.

And it’s frightening.

I’m letting go. I can feel it. And it feels like I could be losing something I’ll die without.

But it is probably for the best.

Because I’m not going to die. Because I’m not going to fall apart. Because I’m going to come through this feeling stronger in a lot of ways. Because I won’t be getting cussed at. Yelled at. Berated for random, mundane issues.

Because I won’t spend the rest of my partner’s life trying to talk him out of killing himself.

Because I won’t have to feel like I’m about to get in trouble, every second of every day, for something utterly unpredictable.

Because I won’t have to feel like the kids are about to get in trouble, every second of every day, for something utterly unpredictable.

This last year has been horrible. He has been so angry and so resentful and so condescending. I tell myself it is unimaginable that he has come to this, but it’s not really. There have been glimpses of this person along the way throughout our entire relationship. I could never understand it—how someone so loving, so intelligent, so affectionate could become instantaneously uncaring, derisive, denigrating. And then he’d snap back to the wonderful person I was so used to, and I’d let it all slip away, like a nightmare or a misunderstanding.

But it never was a misunderstanding.

It was the very real man. The person beneath the charm. The person with his feet firmly planted in a history of abuse, of hurting others before they hurt you, of surviving/winning no matter what it takes.

I’m tempted to say the man I fell in love with never existed. That he was a mirage, some ethereal silhouette we both projected into our lives.

I’m tempted to blame alcohol. To say booze destroyed my soul mate.

I’m tempted to call him on the phone and scream and scream and scream . . . and then beg him to snap out of it.

This last year, I kept thinking of the Prestige. I hated that movie when I saw it. I wanted to wipe it out of my mind before the credits started rolling. But I’ve been thinking of it for months now, with the image of that woman hanging from the ceiling by a noose. Her body swaying. The rope creaking.

She’d said it was like she was married to two people. Like one day he loved her, would die for her, and the next he felt nothing for her at all.

She had been married to two people.

The tragedy is that I’m not.

I’ve experienced the feeling so clearly, though. The disorientation. The world dropping out from beneath your feet. That hollow feeling in your gut. He loves me (Everything’s okay). He hates me (The world is ending). I’m his dream girl. The worst person he’s ever met. Absolutely amazing. A waste of time and energy. His reason for living. The source of his misery.

I would like to say I loved him defiantly, aggressively, unapologetically.

But I didn’t. I have coiled in on myself, ever so slowly, cringing as apologies and explanations spill from my mouth. I’ve gone to sleep. Into hibernation. Just waiting out this horrendous cold.

I’ve uttered self-conscious “I love you’s” for months, and tried not to notice that he looked away when I said them.

And now I feel that weightlessness is right around the corner, I don’t know what to do with the me that’s been left in his wake.

I know I should be good to me. I know I should take my time. I know I should start the process of rebuilding.

But I’m so hurt I don’t know what else do to with the wreckage I’ve become.