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It's Over
Posted On Monday April 2, 2007 By M
My ex-husband and I were together a total of 11 years and 11 months. We had been married for seven and a half of them. We had good times. We also had problems like everyone else. The photo above was taken of us at Disney World in a photo booth. I don’t know what happened to those masks.
In the fall of 2001 he left. It was a combination of things — a midlife crisis, depression, a drug problem, and a budding relationship with his assistant at work. For someone who prided himself on his individuality, both his reasons for leaving and his departure were remarkably cliched. He was one of those men who disappear. Guys who walk out the door that can never face you again, even though they live four blocks away. I never saw him again – except once on the street and once through a subway turnstile.
I was devastated when he left. Being handed a non-negotiable end to a relationship is never easy. Not being able to discuss it because the person makes themselves completely unavailable isn’t easy either. Compounding the difficulty was that the reasons he gave for leaving were none of the above. Rather, I got the old “I never loved you enough to do any of this” line instead. Having someone tell you that your whole life was a lie really messes with your head.
When he said it was over, I asked him how long it would take for him to collect his stuff and leave the house. I wasn’t going to subject myself to seeing him walk out the door, so I sat smoking in the schoolyard next door for 30 minutes.
I remember sitting there so clearly. It was one of those moments where I knew that life was never going to be the same again and all I kept thinking is “what am I going to do?”
But, the crazy thing is that in that moment of devastation, in my head there was a little voice that kept saying “yeah but… you got exactly what you wanted” and there was a teeny part of me that was relieved he was gone.
Tags: abandonment, adultery, disappearance, divorce