Without Tears or Recrimination
Posted on February 7, 2008
Filed Under Anxiety, Blogroll, marriage, milestones, suburban joys | 19 Comments
We waited for a bleak, gray day to talk about it. That’s always the way. It’s so much easier to be confrontational when the weather is as dank and misty. Frustration can simmer even on the sunniest of days but in the gloom of February it just seems impossible to ignore.
Admittedly we’ve been patching it together for awhile, hoping for an alteration or an intervention, praying that some sudden and unexpected personality change would render one or the other of us compatible. But sometimes a person can wake up one morning and see it clearly, if the relationship hasn’t changed in 365 days of trying to change it, then it probably never will. Admittedly it feels like quitting. But then, no one signs up for a lifetime and expects to bow out somewhere along the way. That’s just not the way we humans fashion our hopeful futures. But it’s reality. Some couples go the distance. Others stop at a roadside cafe, decide to split the bill and head off in separate directions once the coffee cups are drained.
There have been many instances when one or the other of us has been standing at the precipice, almost ready to surrender and then, something inexplicable and possibly insignificant, life going by at its usual clip, distracts us from our unhappiness. We give it another go round because it’s expected, this dying on the vine is altogether ordinary. We’ve made a commitment, damn it, and both us want to be reliable and loyal and trustworthy and good for our word.
But now, in the harsh climate of mid-Winter, it’s obvious we aren’t doing each other any favors by simply enduring. After a difficult conversation by cell phone, which is so much easier than parting company in person, we’ve decided that our versions of the future are dramatically different. We tossed around the words commitment and responsibility, we talked about devotion and effort. We decided that we are on different global tracks, different wave lengths, perhaps different planets. We broke smoothly and without tears or recrimination.
It was so text book civil that it ended with ambiguity. Because we are women and our union has been both social and athletic, I danced around a few harsh words, cushioned my message with the requisite, “It’s not you, it’s me,” and “Really, it’s so much fun being with you.” I can’t be certain that I made my point as it was intended. This breaking up is hard to do and while it’s not the defining moment of a good day, it’s the beginning of something new which is always hopeful, until it’s not. I will not be surprised if she walks out on the court with me next week. She has a cheerful disposition that may be sort of deaf to this type of rejection. And I admire her ability to let it all roll off her back while being certain that this willingness to overlook defeat and disappointment is exactly the reason we are so ill matched. I think I broke up with my tennis partner today and only time will tell if she really heard me.
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