Week Twenty Seven - A Day in The Life -  Excessive Heat Warning

One month! On whole month since Paul left with little pre-warning and not a pip from him! What does he think he is doing? Did he think I would come running to him? If he wants space, I’ll give him all the space he needs, and more. Right now, in fact, it is better that he is not around.

I am so mad that I could hit him if he were here.

Just before he left, Paul told me he needed to “think things through’ and needed some space to do it in. He just walked out without telling me what plans he had in mind, if he had any. “I’ll see you later,” he just say as he was heading for the garage with a small duffle bag with his clothes. He said it as though he were going to the grocery store and coming back in half an hour. But he hasn’t come back, and he hasn’t contacted me since them.

What am I supposed to do? Run after him? Ask him to come back? Try to talk with him? How many times have I done this in the past? Many. More than I want to remember. Whenever Paul and I had an argument, I would be the one who made the first step toward patching things up. I could never stand being angry at one another, but not any more. I can now handle my anxiety without running to him for comfort. What comfort can he give me anyway, if he is the one creating the problems? I may worry about what all this means for the two of us, but what can I do?

I have reached the conclusion that, unless both of us are willing to work at our problems, I cannot fix them by myself. If Paul doesn’t want to see me, then we are going to be apart. It breaks my heart, but I am not going to beg him to come back with me. TOO ANGRY FOR THAT!

How has my life been without Paul? Awful, I admit. I miss him terribly. I miss our routines, our plans, our conversations – though lately they were few and far in between - and our sleeping in the same bed and waking up next to one another in the morning. The first week was the most horrible, but then things got more bearable. I have been keeping myself busy with things I had not had time for. I even had time to spend with Melissa and my parents, though being with my parents was a mixed bag. I could write a whole blog just on how they are dealing with what’s happening between Paul and me, but there are more important things to worry about now I will deal with them at a later time. Their feelings about my marriage to Paul are part of an ongoing issue with my parents that at some point needs to be ironed out. Right now I have neither the energy nor the interest to delve into it, so it will just have to wait for better times.

What I don’t miss of my relationship with Paul of lately are the silences. I certainly don’t miss his unilateral decisions that ignored me as though I were not part of his life, as though I did not count. I don’t miss his not taking his share of responsibility for what was going on between us. I don’t miss his being dismissive and disconnected, and avoiding talking about what’s going on beneath the surface of things.

I am not going to call him, no matter what. I want to see how long he will go on with this silence. If I called him, I would repeat the same pattern of always. Let’s see what happens if I don’t do anything.