Wednesday, August 29, 2007

Closure

This is my attempt to make everything okay.

I don’t honestly know if I care whether or not it will work any more than I know whether or not I know what work means..

I like to convince myself that I think I care in the same way that I hope you care. I don’t enjoy making you upset so please don’t change your mind about anything that we’ve said or agreed to recently.

Whilst the last two years of our marriage have ranged from a struggle, at best, to completely miserable, at worst, for the last six years we have lived our lives on fast forward. We had a relationship that was bliss. I mean it was, wasn’t it? But we know now that not everything lasts. I will always try to remember the good times, not to dwell on them and agonise over what went wrong, but just to make the future easier. I’ll try to remember things not being bad.

I know it’s over but I don’t see any danger in remembering when it was real and when it was The Best.

The result, as we both know, has been two adorable and stunningly beautiful children. We’ll always be a Mum and Dad. We shouldn’t just chalk things down to experience and relegate our marriage as a dim and distant mistake. I’m sure that we did make mistakes but learning from them must be key for the sake of our futures.

The situation at the moment is stressful and, ultimately, painful because by nature people fear change and what we’re going through is the ultimate upheaval. Time will definitely heal but we have no control over each other’s feelings or about how we think. Those thoughts and feelings are completely personal. Things we say and do can affect other people but our own reaction to these things cannot be known until they happen. Above and beyond anything else we are individuals. Our moods and temperaments change continuously. This is one of the reasons why I think our relationship has been so turbulent over the last six months and acknowledging it is one of the reasons why our relationship will improve in the future.

I will admit that in the past I have been guilty of emotional and physical neglect insofar as the girls are concerned. What I have come to realise over the last six months is my dependency on them. I couldn’t possibly even begin to imagine them not being there.

I’m sure you feel the same way.

The learning curve that we have both had to climb has turned out to be too steep. That doesn’t alter the fact that we have climbed some of it and have grown as individuals as a result. Maybe we reached the top and didn’t have any further to go? Maybe we exhausted our marriage and exhausted ourselves?

People talk about closure and I feel we’re very close to that now. It may not be until we get divorced that we have complete closure but I definitely feel its presence.

Realistically I don’t think that everything will run smoothly for the rest of our lives. There are too many issues and too many personalities involved to think otherwise. To appreciate anything good you have to experience the bad otherwise the good is irrelevant. We have to make the best of things. I want us to be sincere friends and I think we can be. But it shouldn’t need any effort. We are two people who got on and can get on. Given our mutual interest in the welfare of the girls that is how it has to be.

There must always be a place in my heart for you.

That’s just the way it is.

Time to move on.