The Twilight Zone Version in Book Six: Trying to Hold On 2019

This is the Twilight Zone Version of my life. The normal goings on of my house for many many weeks has been as follows:

Chris comes home from work or play practice.
Nala freaks out all happy.
Wife is somewhere else doing paperwork of some kind.
I say hello; Wife says hello. Sometimes Wife will stand up and come out to see me and give me a hug.
I go downstairs to play video games until I get hungry and make us both dinner.

That’s our normal life. And tonight? That is pretty much what is happening.

Chris comes home.
Nala freaks out all happy.
Wife is paying bills.
I say hello; Wife says hello.
She is upstairs doing her thing and I am downstairs playing video games.
But the difference tonight?? She’s sobbing. And I’m crying my damned eyes out.

Little Voice, of course, finds power in all of this.
You were together for 14 years; you couldn’t take a little unhappiness to prevent doing something like this to your wife?!
Brilliant way to start off the Holiday Season, Jackass. Reach into your wife’s chest and remove her still beating heart to show it to her- Happy Holidays!
The fuck is she going to do now?! Will she even finish her semester of school now or will she just quit entirely?
Time to start thinking division of assets! Not only are you going to wave bye bye to cold cash; but consider everything in the house. Beds, tables, chairs, televisions, art, chests… your place is going to get hollowed out!

And I try to ignore all of that. I try to just play my video game and pretend it is every other night of the last 5 months. Because frankly… considering that my life has been without emotional connection or intimacy for so long… it shouldn’t be that hard to pretend like this is just another regular night. Hell, even Wife crying could be attributed to being frustrated with her homework or watching one of her shows. But I’m not that good at lying to myself. And every sob and wail and sniffle hammers home into my heart “You did this to her. This is because of you.“

But I hear something in her crying. I hear something extremely familiar. And I know in her mind, she loved me as much as was honestly able to. And I do hear that in her crying. She is devastated by losing the closest thing she’s had to love. And I respect that. But there’s something else. THAT is the familiar thing I’m hearing. The sobbing, the specific type of crying, the “the entire world is ending” crying? This is the crying that we encountered during her Job Meltdown and during the Nala Meltdown. This is 100% her “World-Altering Change and I Hate It” crying. Who knows? If I’d heard that sobbing more before I mentioned divorce in 2014; things may have gone differently. Because this is Wife’s third “World Altering Change and I Hate It” crying event in the last year and a half. So now I know what it sounds like.

It doesn’t make me feel better, of course. Because the first time; she was wailing because of her own self-doubt due to a good job. The second time; she was wailing because of owning an adorable puppy that loves her and is loved by her. The third time?? Now she’s wailing because I am ending our marriage. It isn’t the stressed-wailing-misery of “you’re freaking out over a good thing?” It is the stressed wailing-misery of “something traumatic happened today that is going to reverberate for the rest of your life.”

I still feel torn.
(1) I had to do this. The only possible outcomes were (a) continued misery for me; (b) cheating on my wife; or (c) separating/divorcing. Those were the only three options and none of them are “great and happy.”
(2) I am a monster for doing this. I can withstand great pain and great discomfort. By doing nothing, I would have simply continued to withstand great pain and great discomfort without causing more to someone I care about.
(3) I’m not a monster, but I’m not in the right. I had to do something to stop the continuing cycle of pain and hardship. I had to do something to protect myself. But hurting her? That isn’t right, either. I know there isn’t a way of doing this that wouldn’t but… there are no heroes or villains, no good guys and bad guys, no angels and devils. Just people. People living in a fucked up world of torture, pain, and misery. And you’re just two people who tried to build something together in that world. And failed.

I did the ten year challenge today, by the way. It seems… fitting. And fucked up.

The youthful picture? That was taken by my Wife as part of our “Engagement Announcement”
The older picture? That was taken by me on the day I told my wife “We need to transition into separation or divorce.”
So the differences you see? That’s 10 years. That’s the wedding, the marriage, and the acceptance of failure. That’s law school and the bar exam and Tiny Town and Chinese Firm and SVU Attorney. 10 years. From engagement to separation.