It was the Saturday night that followed my 39th birthday, and He had taken me out to celebrate. I was trying as hard as I could to make things work, because as God is my witness, that’s all I really wanted. After endless amounts of soul-searching, skin shedding, “Flight 438”, and The Flyboy, I knew exactly what I wanted our marriage to be, and exactly what would need to happen to accomplish it:

We have given ourselves a year or maybe even longer. He needs to do some serious soul-searching and self-repair as well if this is ever going to work. He too has been damaged by his past, our past, and also needs to shed some skin. We have tortured and abused each other to the point of no return but our history together has got to count for something. We are living here together and will remain married on paper but are separated in every other way. He’ll do his thing, I’ll do mine … basically nothing will change, as this is how we’ve existed for years. Only now there are no false pretenses or expectations as to what we either can or can’t make of this farce of a marriage. I won’t lay in a bed with him or any other man for that matter and give myself completely unless I can honestly see myself as beautiful and whole in someone’s eyes as I felt in yours. That is what I want, that is what I need, and after 20 years of living this way, I will settle for nothing less! What I want and need probably most of all is to finally be able to have my own husband, the man I’ve been chasing endlessly around for almost 20 years, try to begin to see who I am, what I am, what I’ve become and be the one who I can truly connect with, and not in the imaginary way it has been this whole time. Maybe, just maybe, then the years of chasing Him will not have been in vain and the hole he left in my heart can be patched and filled. This next year will be about legitimately trying to find and repair ourselves, separately. When the time is right, and who knows when that will be, we’ll begin to spend some time together, try to get to know the new, healthier people we will hopefully each be becoming and see if there is any shred of hope left between us other than our kids that we can salvage. I honestly don’t foresee that happening at this point and I think He is a little more hopeful than I’d like Him to be …  There is so much water under our bridge and so many damaging things have been said between us over and over and over … many of which still ring inside my ears, and probably His even as I write this. But I will give it my best effort for the love of my children and also because I do love Him as well. Twenty years are too many to throw away and something tells me that if ever it were possible for Him to really look at me and see me as you did then our relationship could truly come full circle.

{“So Far Away“}

The events that followed dinner are much too personal to share and there are less than a handful of people in this world that will ever really know what happened between us that night. Sufficed to say, the only gift I really wanted from my husband, the man I’d been chasing endlessly for almost twenty years, was the defining moment of what would never become of the rest of “our” lives. I’d finally taken the risk and given Him “everything”: Myself, my hopes, my dreams, my secrets and all my precious vulnerabilities. Not only did He throw them all back in my face, but he also threw into the faces of my own father and son. Terrible, awful, horrible “secrets” I had shared with Him in an effort to make our marriage real once and for all and after all those years of praying for a safe place to just be “me” with him … things that no father or son should ever have to hear. He extinguished any hope I’d dared to have for our marriage and single-handedly put the final nail in our coffin. There would be NO going back this time. The fairy tale was finally over and I’d be leaving the palace for good.

RIGHT HERE

I know I’ve been mistaken, but just give me a break and see the changes that I’ve made. I’ve got some imperfections, but how can you collect them all and throw them in my face? But you always find a way to keep me right here waiting. You always find the words to say to keep me right here waiting. If you chose to walk away, I’d still be right here waiting, searching for the things to say to keep you right here waiting. I hope you’re not intending to be so condescending – it’s as much as I can take. But you’re so independent. You just refuse to bend, so I keep bending till I break. But you always find a way to keep me right here waiting. You always find the words to say to keep me right here waiting. If you chose to walk away, I’d still be right here waiting searching for the things to say to keep you right here waiting. I’ve made a commitment – I’m willing to bleed for you. I needed fulfillment. I found what I need in you. Can’t you just forgive me? I don’t want to relive all the mistakes I’ve made along the way. But I always find a way to keep you right here waiting. I always find the words to say to keep you right here waiting. If I chose to walk away, would you be right here waiting? Searching for the things to say to keep me right here waiting. {Staind}