In the Sadness 

When I first started writing here, I was more than 10 years post divorce and in a relationship I thought I would be in for the rest of my life. I felt very removed from the pain of it all. I thought I could offer advise and hope to those in the throws of it. If I am being honest, I was probably a little smug about it.

And now, my ex is threatening to sue me for custody because I had the nerve to ask him to share in some expenses for our daughter and my relationship of almost a year and a half is over. That demise started 5 weeks ago and culminated yesterday when I finally said, after 5 weeks of crying, bargaining and having every commitment to try to work it out broken, and finally being told that he just "wasn't into it anymore", that I needed a clean break. He seemed, well, happy. I told him I had really loved him and he said he knew that. I think I was hoping he would tell me the same, but he didn't.

I am devastated. As sad as I was when my marriage ended, maybe sadder. And I am exhibiting much of the same behavior; not sleeping, not eating, crying a lot, replaying things over and over in my head and imagining how I could have reacted differently, done things differently, been better so that he would keep loving me. And unlike my husband, I really believed that he was the kind of guy that would love me forever, that really thought he was lucky to have me. He had a lot of baggage from his marriage, and he had some real issues, some real rigidity about certain things, but I loved him because I felt safe with him, that the kind of love he was offering me was something I could count on.

I am in that stage where I am hoping he will somehow magically come back to being that guy I was with that used to stare at me and ask if he could just worship me, or turn to me in the morning and tell me that in his fantasies when he was leaving his marriage, he had imagined having a relationship like the one we were having. But they don't come back, do they?

So here I am, in it, sleepless and heart broken and hoping that there will be happiness and love for me again. And hoping the same for all of you that are feeling the pain of loss right now.