In anticipation of a reply

[SimonSays]

Perhaps it is the effect of the feeling of excitement finally waning. Like a natural high I'm coming down off. And while excitement comes with thoughts to interpret where it might lead, I know I must let go of those thoughts in preference for just feeling the state of excitement and holding it.

This is something I’ve come across before. No insistence on any particular outcome. Leave it in the hands of the universe. I really want to do that. To put out a feeling that attracts a reflection of that feeling, rather than imagine what it could, should, or ought to look like, and hold that idea as if it is the highest possible solution to that feeling. My imagination is only the beginning of what's possible. Why limit myself to just my imagination?

 

[SimonSays]

It was always like this with her. I needed her attention and when I had it, all was right in the world. But she had responsibilities. She was busy within a complicated corporate world, and there was less and less room for me in that. Most of our communicating was done via text during the day, but as time went on even that diminished. Space and silence was needed. Not good for a needy insecure bloke as I was.

I can still feel it in there as the old pattern exists within me, but now we are no longer together, in fact half a world apart, and 3 years without real contact, feeling the familiarity, the connection, almost as if no time has gone by, has been good for me.

I like interacting with her. She was always special, but our living situation was not ideal, and it had to end. And yet after all this time, I still know who she is, and still feel close to her. I think I've been missing her, but had just accepted that we were no longer in each other's lives anymore. Then suddenly, it's as if no time has passed, and we are talking to each other, not in a romantic sense, but easily. On one level I get it, but it is an unexpected surprise nevertheless. I've missed her. I just pushed away those feelings because I had no way of expressing them any more. It can't go further than interaction. It's just nice to have her in my life again. Made me feel quite emotional actually.

 

[SimonSays]

There was a brief phone call and it was nice to hear her voice and speak in real time, but texting allows her the space to work (she works from home and has online meetings) has actually been much nicer. Without that sense of immediacy that having someone on the end of the phone brings, and for the last two days, there's been a lot of back-and-forth. Reminiscing as well. Just talking like we always used to. It goes on all day with spaces in between, and there's a six hour time difference to consider too, but it reminds me of the way we were when we first met, minus the romantic aspect. It's just nice to talk to someone so familiar as if all the past is wiped away. No issues remain or need to be dealt with. I've never experienced anything like it.

 

[SimonSays]

Reconnecting with somebody I was really close to, well, married to, has reminded me how dangerous it is for me to be around her. By that I mean I find myself falling so easily into her world that I can easily cease to exist.

This feels wonderful initially, but it becomes a kind of burden to keep up. To remain really interested. To always be available, because I've been available always. For it to work I have to surrender myself. To trust her in a way that isn't easy to explain. Perhaps nobody should be put in that position, but I've come across a few who seem worthy of that, and my ex-wife was one of them. In many ways she still is, perhaps even more so now, but the price I paid for seeing her that way isn't something I could continue to pay. By the time I realised this, I've already paid too much. I already become lost in her way of doing things, that in order to reclaim myself, I have to essentially create conflict between us.

I remember a guru in India once telling me, when we were discussing whether it was possible for someone attempting to walk a spiritual path to be in a relationship, that in order to do so one would have to see the goddess in the person I was with. By assumption, that meant I would have to feel connected to the God within me in order to do so. No small thing.

But I can honestly say that there were moments when I could see the goddess in her, but just because I could see that doesn't mean she was experiencing that in me. For a while my energy seemed able to bridge the gap. To make up the difference. But only for a while. Neither of us were those people, and so what he was explaining was an ideal situation that I was not able to achieve. And yet I came close. And at times I felt how wonderful it would be to live this way. To have complete trust. To let go of doubt. To accept her perspective and support it. I don't think this is normal. Perhaps that's why it didn't work. It wasn't the first time I'd tried this. First time it turned around very quickly, so that instead of me surrendering to her, she was surrendering to me.

Now obviously life is all about learning through experience, so whether such a thing could ever be achieved in one sense doesn't really matter. The experience is what matters. But I think I would still want it in some way. Not to put everything onto my partners shoulders. Not to make her responsible for what takes place. But allow her vision to be what moves us, while just having an input along the way. Just not being the boss. Being okay to be the support crew.

I don't know if I'll ever get another crack at this. But somehow reconnecting with her has ignited the feeling of it. And that's very different for me. So something has shifted within me, and I feel it, and I'm not quite sure what to do with it. I have to be careful. I do have a tendency to imagine things are happening when they're only happening for me.

 

[SimonSays]

I don't know if you've ever been with a woman who knows how to be in charge of many people. A good woman, and very good at her job. She's used to being in control of her world. That doesn't stop when the job is over for the day, although in many ways it's not really ever over. Sure, I suppose there are some who might feel like they no longer have to be in charge with the man they're with, but my ex wasn't like that.

So I had to be someone who was okay with her setting the pace, making the decisions, because she was best placed to know how everything needed to flow so that she could fit in everything that needed to happen. I had no idea what was going on most of the time. And couldn't really understand how she managed it all. She might suddenly say 'okay let's go'. I'd have no idea where we were going and I wouldn't even bother asking. I'd just put my jacket on, get in the car, and see where we went.

Even as I say that I can see that it's a very strange way to live. I would have to be extremely passive for long periods of time for that to work. I thought I could be. It turned out that I couldn't be. And once I had attempted to intervene for some reason, thus interfering with her mind map of the way things should be, while she did attempt to consider my perspective, it was actually making it harder for her than it needed to be. It was better if I just didn't have an opinion. Nothing had to matter. I wish I could have continued to stay that way. But it's not really much of a life. I'm not really a husband. And that's probably the crux of the matter. I needed to be with her on many levels. To be a companion for her. And I was. But I was also very insecure, and this was a problem.

I hope you don't mind reading these posts as I'm not sure where I'm going with all this. I suppose it's more of a blog in many ways but then I never realised it would be when I started it.

 

[Gracey]

I was heartened to read you'd realised that being with her wasn't much of a life for you.
Making someone elses life easier by not having an opinion seems unbalanced imho.
As if you yourself disappeared and in your place manifested this ideal that was everything she needed.

What about you?
Your needs?
Being an equal partner in the investment (relationship)?

 

[SimonSays]

@Gracey

Before I was with her I was sharing with another woman who had wanted me to be her companion. She really wanted more than that but I wasn’t able to give her more than that.

I was living in another country, without permission, but doing so nevertheless. I lost myself as I thought that I had no choice. I didn’t want to leave so I accepted certain things over time that changed me. I let her take over.

My wife to be lived in the same apartment building. She was both a breath of fresh air and an escape from this person. Someone I actually wanted to be with and the idea of surrendering to her was so much easier as it allowed me to escape from the person I’d become. To do all the things I hadn’t been able to do for so long.

But when you live like that and give up so much of yourself to do so, eventually what has been an escape reveals itself, and the price that has been paid, albeit slowly now becomes almost unbearable.

In both cases we were living in a single room, but my wife’s room was just 14’ x 14’, with a shared bathroom. For the first six months of my time with her I had to share her with a jealous pit bull which she used to leave alone in the room when she went to work, often coming back to find it had defecated on the floor as it couldn’t hold it any longer. I've always struggled to be around dogs, but to live with a damaged dog used to having her all to herself made her constantly try to interfere with our togetherness. Most times she would side with the dog! And the dog would look at me while it was being intimately stroked as if to say “See… She loves me not you”. I started to realise I was in competition for her attention and fast turning into the second dog! That dog was a rescue, and in many ways so was I.

When your self-esteem is that low because you’re accepting things like this, you accept things you wouldn’t in other situations.

She eventually found a new home for the dog because she knew it couldn’t go on like this. She wasn’t there to look after it properly, and soon wouldn’t be there even more, and I couldn’t look after it, even though I did try making friends for a while. But she made me feel so bad for having to get rid it. I felt so relieved that it was gone and thought that finally we could make a real go of our relationship. But essentially all that happened was I moved into dog position number one!

I know I make her sound bad in the way I’m speaking here, but she wasn’t. She had issues and I wasn’t helping, in fact I was bringing them out and I didn’t know what to do to stop this happening.

I knew I had to go, it just took the right reason to make me do so.

I did love her. I was sure she loved me, at least at first. She did things that made me feel special, wanted. But maybe I was just a novelty really. She needed something to love, something to be loved by, and I was a bit better than a dog.

The whole thing was messed up of course, but then, so was I.

 

[SimonSays]

On the one hand it almost seems cruel. Come back into my life, want to help me, make me feel something, talk, share, give me attention, answer my questions, and then just disappear without a word.

Assuming nothing happened and her silence is deliberate, why do that? Why help and then potentially hurt? Create uncertainty. Make me wonder if I did something to cause it. Make me experience loss again. Could it have been intentional? Or did it come about in order to avoid creating attachment?

If nothing happened to her, I tend to go with the latter. I could feel myself becoming entangled. Changing my routine. Looking at my phone to see if there were new messages. I never do that. I never even carry my phone when I go out. Now suddenly she's everything to me again, just as it was when I was her husband. The love and connection is still there; it had been lying dormant and this brought it right to the surface. Only to have it knocked back down so that nothing further could happen.

 

[SimonSays]

And how could I know she had really gone? Just because someone doesn't text back right away or within a short time doesn't mean they're not going to. And yet somehow I knew.

I wasn't ready to let go. What could I say that might elicit a response? As I thought about it I realised that if I said anything else I would be digging the hole even deeper. I doubted she would reply anyway no matter what I said, and that would only make me feel worse.

So instead of writing to her directly, I wrote to her in my journal. I said what I wanted to say, to get it out, so it was said, even if it wasn't going to be sent. I could already feel myself becoming disentangled. No longer on edge wondering if there would be a reply. While it still wasn't out of the question initially, once I reached a state of certainty that I was alone again, with just the feeling of having experienced something like a dream, I was basically back to being where I was before she arrived.

 

[SimonSays]

I know what it was that drew me in so quickly. The thing I'd been missing most of all.

Imagine having a conversation with someone you love, whom you haven't spoken to for a very long time. Suddenly, unexpectedly, you are talking to them in real time, and feeling that sense of presence just like you always did. The way you talk, familiar, easy, and you just keep doing it, letting the subject change and going with the flow, remembering and reminiscing; it doesn't matter what is said, it's just lovely that it's happening, especially as you never thought you would ever talk like that with them again.

She's not the only person I've ever talked like that with, so the truth is, I honestly can't say how much it was about her and how much it was about talking that way. So it may not have been my ex who was the real gift, the real gift was talking to her like that and feeling the love. That's what I'd been missing.