It’s been about a week since my revelation.  I’ve had panic attacks every day.  I’ve cried every day.  I’ve wanted her back every day.  I’ve improved every day (little by little, with a few setbacks).

I’ve made things worse for her.

In trying to reconnect and tell her how I feel… how sorry I am, and how I want to try and fix it if I’m not too late……I feel as though I’ve pushed her further away.  She’s going through a rough patch herself, and I have no way to really connect with her or support her, because I’ve just gone completely overboard from the start.

And so I’m still struggling.  Badly.  Terribly.  I feel every day that my mind is on fire, and I am unable to do anything about it.

Today I went to IKEA…. I’m a big fan of IKEA, and actually enjoy wandering the maze of furniture and design (we have similar design tastes, she and I).  I wanted an area rug of some kind, so that when I do my little home workouts, my sweat doesn’t get all over the carpet of my apartment.

But then every section reminded me of her.  We’ve discussed the style and applicability of nearly every item in those stores… and I remembered them all, in real-time, as I was walking through.  I remember where she saw a desk that she likes (and we eventually bought).  Where we got our dining room table.  Our couch.  Storage bins.  I remember checking out the children’s beds, laughing as we thought of how perfect they’d be for our (very large) dog.

I started feeling sick…. so deeply sick to my stomach.  I started dry heaving in the middle of the store, and causing strangers around me to stare and wonder if I was alright.

I wasn’t alright.

I raced through the store in a wide-eyed panic, desperately trying to escape a place that once brought so much joy…. to both of us.  I cried in my car on the way home.  I bought a pack of cigarettes and smoked two of them while shaking…. a setback so that I wouldn’t go insane in the dark and rainy evening, all alone and knowing that she also feels alone on the other side of the country… and me also knowing that there was nothing I could do about it.

——

This past week I’ve tried to reach out to as many friends as I felt comfortable with, and talked to them about this situation I find myself in.  Multiple times, the phrases of “It takes two to tango” and “Two sides to every coin” have come up.
The big thing I keep hearing is the question:  Why did it take the reading of a private journal to realize what was going on?

That is THE question.  Yes, we had many conversations about how she was feeling, and her thoughts about what was going wrong…. but… there was a definite breakdown in communication.  Was I simply not listening, or was she also not telling?  Am I looking at her (and our past) with rose-colored lenses, and ignoring the problems that were there, other than my side?

Funnily enough, I actually am a very big fan of rose-colored lenses for many applications.  They’re great for shooting on a rifle range, for example.  But I digress…

It’s extremely unfair of me to suddenly say “I love you again, I want you back now!”, and expect her to just drop everything to come running back.
It’s extremely unfair of me to also say “Just trust me… I’ve changed this time!”

But it’s also unfair to me to expect everything to be perfect right away, especially when both of us are in our own dark places.  That’s a setup for a very quick failure, yet again.

So I have to actually continue my improvement… and I have to allow her time for her own.  I don’t want to wait… but I have to.  It’s the only way.  And then if there ever comes a time when we’re talking regularly again, and she wants to give it another shot…. we have to do that slowly, too.

The first step would be marriage counseling.  The thing she asked for over and over and over for me to arrange…. but I never did.  That fact haunts me…. because maybe if I had done it, we wouldn’t be in this situation at all.

We would have to communicate… not from ourselves to journals (for her) or blogs (for me, starting this week), but to each other – face to face.  I’ll never read her personal journals or text messages or anything ever again, btw, unless it’s specifically for others to view.  That’s a promise I made to her recently, and I intend to keep it.
But if we return to each other…. we’d either need to write each other letters, or speak to each other about our feelings- something neither of us are particularly great at.  I share thoughts in a very… non-digestible way.  She just shares the absolute minimum.  We’d both have to work on that.

Because what if we do get back together, and that communication isn’t actually fixed?  Will we go down the exact same road we’ve traveled before, and live as strangers under the same roof?  Probably.  Could I live with that?

Could I live with that?

No.

[thinks]

….No.  It would break me all the more.

Here’s the thing…. that’s a tough conversation to have with someone.  To say “I need you to go against your nature, and really open up when you feel the absolute worst.”
I’m not sure I can ask that in a way that wouldn’t make her angry, or shut down even more.  She’d have to be ready for that, and it’d very much have to be on her own time.  I cannot affect that timeline for her own self-improvement, no matter what I do…. just like she wasn’t able to affect mine, really.  Mine only came after, later than either of us would possibly want.  And mine has been very much internal, without her present involvement (only her past words).

Is she perfect?
Fuuuuuuuuuck No.

Is she, with all of her flaws and idiosyncrasies and depression and anxiety, actually worth it?

Yes.

Break the rose-tinted glasses.  Put on clear ones.

Is she still worth it?

Yes.

She always has been, even if she doesn’t realize it.

But… until that time comes when I can say that to her (far into the future), I can’t view her memory with that rose-tint.  It’ll drive me insane, or to suicide.  I need to see clearly.

And when the time comes for us to look upon one another again, I still will need those clear lenses.  Because then, the journey will not be over- no, it’ll just be beginning again.