Lost

It's my fifteenth wedding anniversary. It's over a year and a half since my husband walked away. It still hurts.

I've been having these rage dreams lately, just every now and then. In them, I'm arguing with a family member (the person changes, and they don't seem to be triggered by actual events). I end up screaming and crying—these gut-wrenching screams and sobs—and they ignore me, utterly unmoved while I'm humiliated by my impotence and lack of control.

So, yeah... that's not good. A lot of it is probably due to current events, anxiety over the move and the things Still Not Done, but the feeling of impotence has been a theme since the end of the marriage. In many ways, I'm still in shock. Something that meant so much to me and that I would have done anything in the world to save... but I couldn't. Either I didn't get the opportunity or I missed it.

Even now, the recurring question is "Why couldn't he love me?" Of course, we talked extensively about that last year, so logically I understand why he stopped loving me. But I don't understand it on an illogical level. On the level where you love somebody just because you know them so well and they know you so well that you're part of each other. We lived together for sixteen years. For me, that's more time spent together than with anybody else. He's shaped me more than anybody else—He shaped my family.

I remind myself daily of him in little things I do and say, habits and phrases I picked up from him. As a family, we continue to tell the in-jokes he created, and our playlists are full of music he introduced us to. He had so much positive impact on us, it's impossible for me to move on from him, because there is so much of him that I should be taking with me.

So logically, I'm no longer in love with my husband. So much happened and there's been so much pain... but illogically, he's my family, he's part of me, and I'll always care deeply for him.

It's brutal then, to consider this from his perspective. How could he walk away after sixteen years of me being part of him? The simplest answer is that I'm not part of him. He adored me early on, far more into me than I was into him... but did he ever really allow me into himself? Did he always wall me out and I never realised? Or is it purely that other circumstances took over and it didn't matter. Either way, it's deeply unsettling when the person who knows you best in the world considers you dispensable.

That's really the recipe for the anxiety and depression I've had since January 2018: A combination of the ultimate rejection and of losing a huge part of myself. (The functional aspects of suddenly not having a partner in life are not insignificant either.) The therapist I was seeing in the States said I may never get over my husband, but I can accept that grief and balance it out with the rest of my life.

Sure enough, it's not all doom and gloom. I still have a family, even if the dynamic is radically different and functionality is a lot harder. For all the confidence I've lost, I've gained some too as I continue to achieve things on my own... I'm terribly insecure about the things I've yet to achieve, fearing that I just can't, and it's good for me to look back on what I have already managed despite those fears. Like driving down narrow Cornish lanes! (We'll ignore the couple of occasions this week when I made a wrong turn into too small a space and made a terrible mess of getting the car around to get out—the important thing is, I did get myself out both times, even if it took several minutes.)

Being single itself isn't bad at all, probably because I'm not looking for love. I quite enjoy online dating, even if I don't go on many dates. It's interesting to talk to other people my age who are single, who have had to shed a dream of happily ever after or who are pursuing an alternative to the traditional domestic bliss. Actually going out with somebody in a purely adult setting is a bonus... it's nice to be a woman rather than a mother sometimes.

Marriage was very good for me and I have often thought that I would do better by remarrying. But I have never fallen in love easily. Falling in love with my husband required moving in with him and having a nervous breakdown. (Long story.) As candid as I am, I'm always wary of letting people in, and having the children is only going to exacerbate that. Maybe it will happen even though I don't expect it, but I'm not going to try to find love again. When the kids leave home, that could change... it's only ten years before my youngest would go to university, and I've no reason to think I'll be too decrepit to enjoy a new a relationship or a new start at 51!

Until then, I'll just take fun and romance where I find it. I'll celebrate my family and continue building my life. There's a void that will never really be filled, but that grief is part of me now and I must find the value in that. I'm still looking for who I am.

Not all those who wander are lost, but since I'm lost, I may as well wander.