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I promised a more detailed journal entry about the holiday, but since I made that promise I've been stumped. It probably doesn't help that this week is a big one for me in many ways. The 10th - tomorrow - will be the first anniversary of the break-up with Cameron. The 12th will be the first anniversary of our actual separation, and the day I can officially sign the divorce papers. In sharp contrast, the 14th will mark the six month anniversary of my relationship with Matt.
Also coming up this week: confirmation from the real estate agent as to whether or not we can stay here, and the word should be coming back from the job interview I had just before we left for Christmas. Their office has been shut for the last two weeks, so I haven't started feeling paranoid until today. I'd really like this job, and I'd also really like it if we could stay in this house, but neither of those things is a necessity for me to survive. Neither of them is causing me great emotional turmoil right now.
I wish I could say the same about the other stuff. It's not that I have any great desire to go running back to Cameron - if anything, my convictions that we wouldn't be able to work it out are stronger than they were at the time - but I am still very sad that things had to end. I'm sad that I lost something I thought would last a lifetime, and something I was prepared to work on to make it last that distance. I'm sad that while I'll be celebrating a really happy and fulfilling six months with Matt, I'll have this lack of certainty, this knowledge that things you want to last sometimes don't, lingering in the back of my head. On the one hand, it feels like a black mark on my view of relationships; there's a cynicism there now that didn't exist a year ago. Then again, I know just how deeply I should cherish what Matt and I have, and how I should guard it and make sure I don't take it for granted.
It's not something I spoke about at the time for fear of upsetting someone who didn't deserve my wrath and pain, but I've spent much of this year grappling with the fact that Cameron's choice to let this relationship go wasn't just a choice between me and the generic not-me, our marriage or none at all. There was a specific other person he was after, someone else whose existence as a mere romantic possibility for him, however remote, pulled harder at his heart than I could as his wife. It certainly wasn't the only factor - the marriage was already pretty broken before said person arrived on the scene - but it was a catalyst. It sticks out for me among the many reasons piled up because the hurt surrounding it was so very prolonged.
Above all else I trusted that Cameron would tell me the truth about his feelings for others and me, and he didn't. He ignored his own feelings, and he ignored the pain they were causing me. Needless to say, I'm left with some trust issues.
Ironically, though, it's helped me to let go of things more readily: in this particular regard, he left a reality for a daydream, a long term commitment for a folly. A year on, I get a sense of satisfaction that he's not with the person in question, nor is he likely to be in the near future, assuming that's something he still wants. But it isn't satisfaction in the form of triumph or a thing well done. It's cold, hard satisfaction and there is nothing good in it.
But even had that not occurred, I think things would've ended eventually. Perhaps it happened a little sooner because of this, perhaps the hurt runs a little deeper. That said, I doubt I'll ever view this relationship ending as a clean parting-of-the-ways, a simple agreement to disagree. It could've been that, and in many important respects it was. He wasn't sure about kids, I was. I'm more firm in my decision-making and he's more easy going. He saw me as someone he had to take care of, for Christ's sake. I know these things in my head, but not so much in my heart.
When all's said and done and the silence falls, I feel like I was left for someone else.
Also coming up this week: confirmation from the real estate agent as to whether or not we can stay here, and the word should be coming back from the job interview I had just before we left for Christmas. Their office has been shut for the last two weeks, so I haven't started feeling paranoid until today. I'd really like this job, and I'd also really like it if we could stay in this house, but neither of those things is a necessity for me to survive. Neither of them is causing me great emotional turmoil right now.
I wish I could say the same about the other stuff. It's not that I have any great desire to go running back to Cameron - if anything, my convictions that we wouldn't be able to work it out are stronger than they were at the time - but I am still very sad that things had to end. I'm sad that I lost something I thought would last a lifetime, and something I was prepared to work on to make it last that distance. I'm sad that while I'll be celebrating a really happy and fulfilling six months with Matt, I'll have this lack of certainty, this knowledge that things you want to last sometimes don't, lingering in the back of my head. On the one hand, it feels like a black mark on my view of relationships; there's a cynicism there now that didn't exist a year ago. Then again, I know just how deeply I should cherish what Matt and I have, and how I should guard it and make sure I don't take it for granted.
It's not something I spoke about at the time for fear of upsetting someone who didn't deserve my wrath and pain, but I've spent much of this year grappling with the fact that Cameron's choice to let this relationship go wasn't just a choice between me and the generic not-me, our marriage or none at all. There was a specific other person he was after, someone else whose existence as a mere romantic possibility for him, however remote, pulled harder at his heart than I could as his wife. It certainly wasn't the only factor - the marriage was already pretty broken before said person arrived on the scene - but it was a catalyst. It sticks out for me among the many reasons piled up because the hurt surrounding it was so very prolonged.
Above all else I trusted that Cameron would tell me the truth about his feelings for others and me, and he didn't. He ignored his own feelings, and he ignored the pain they were causing me. Needless to say, I'm left with some trust issues.
Ironically, though, it's helped me to let go of things more readily: in this particular regard, he left a reality for a daydream, a long term commitment for a folly. A year on, I get a sense of satisfaction that he's not with the person in question, nor is he likely to be in the near future, assuming that's something he still wants. But it isn't satisfaction in the form of triumph or a thing well done. It's cold, hard satisfaction and there is nothing good in it.
But even had that not occurred, I think things would've ended eventually. Perhaps it happened a little sooner because of this, perhaps the hurt runs a little deeper. That said, I doubt I'll ever view this relationship ending as a clean parting-of-the-ways, a simple agreement to disagree. It could've been that, and in many important respects it was. He wasn't sure about kids, I was. I'm more firm in my decision-making and he's more easy going. He saw me as someone he had to take care of, for Christ's sake. I know these things in my head, but not so much in my heart.
When all's said and done and the silence falls, I feel like I was left for someone else.
