How to Leave Someone You Love, Pt I
Part I — Seeds of Doubt
I’ve been haunted by a cloud of dread I can’t seem to shake. The facade is crumbling, the presentation of a perfect life becoming too hard to maintain. I have never felt so afraid and so alone, with the physical pull of my soul being yanked inside out. The conclusion seems foregone; an unavoidable reality lingers in the distance. I’ve been pushing it away for so long and so successfully, too, or so I thought. Looking back, I am increasingly understanding this is no way to live. Going through the motions, prolonging the inevitable.
My fear has held me captive — trapped in a layered, intricate web. Every time I try to untangle the mess and give words to the truth in my heart, the sticky strands catch me up and I’m left motionless, frozen in the moment. My anxiety has built steadily over the past months, in ways both obvious at the surface and churning subconsciously. It has spewed out in bits of hostility and spite, whittling away our once inseparable bond. So much has changed and I can’t avoid the truth any longer. It’s time to put pen to paper, to speak the honest words I have failed to voice over the past year. No more running.
Fading
I fell out of love much in the same way I fell into it, slowly at first, and then suddenly all at once. When I finally accepted that perhaps I wasn’t meant to be alone, as I had long believed, I slipped into the niche of feeling needed. How good it feels to be loved so completely — admired, revered, every flaw and imperfection overlooked. I was smitten; his love made me safe to let down my guard, to slowly but surely dismantle my emotional barriers. I became vulnerable to a man for the first time and it felt so easy, so right. It was automatic between us. I became addicted to feeling wanted, to having someone tell me I was beautiful and smart, to laugh at my jokes, to listen to my rants.
Yet falling asleep under the heavy weight of his arm should have foreshadowed the future burden of being the source of another person’s happiness. How could I be responsible for that when I couldn’t even manage my own happiness? Those nights I’d lay awake, unable to sleep but with a sense of contentment and validation knowing that I had finally found this elusive thing called love that I never thought I’d find. Someone to love, and to love me in return.
What goes unseen is how addictive the feeling is, morphing quickly into codependence masked in the trappings of “true love”. An unhealthy reliance developed, where I wasn’t sure either of us would be happy alone. It wasn’t until we lived together that I began to see I wanted and needed much more personal time, some space to breathe, to be alone with my thoughts and pursue my own interests. Our small apartment offered equally little physical and emotional room; the confines seemed to close in on me as the weeks and months passed. I didn’t want to spend every waking moment together, nor did I want to share every single experience and passtime.
Any time we’d meet up with friends or family, I was acutely aware of every ignorant comment, bad joke, or cultural reference missed. Hypercritical, I could hardly bear the perceived judgment emanating from people I respected and liked. I wondered what they must be thinking and began questioning the opinions of my own inner circle. Who had I really asked for advice about our relationship? Had anyone told me what they truly believed?
The guilt wouldn’t be far behind these questions, usually coming in sharp pangs when he’d mess up his hair just the way I like or surprise me with a note. Wasn’t I being pretentious, condescending and so selfish. How could anyone have reservations with the gift of a kindhearted, well-intentioned soul — tall, tan, and perpetually optimistic. Yet it was my frustration and short-temper that would ruin his mood and create palpable tension in the air. I began to hate myself for being so critical, began questioning every aspect of our relationship and wondering how we got to where we were: five years together, a courthouse wedding, a new house, a future?
On Paper
All too often we hear the phrase that one person is “too good” for another, when what we should be asking is if two people are right for each other. As our initial spark faded, I increasingly questioned this. I am stubborn, independent, introverted and intellectual. He is outgoing, charismatic, and light-hearted. They say opposites attract, and it’s true, we balance one another in terms of strengths and weaknesses. We are highly compatible on paper, a seemingly perfect fit. Poised for success, ready to take over the world. I convinced myself of this, too.
But we changed over time as individuals and also as partners. I remember having butterflies before seeing him and anxiously awaiting our time together. But that feeling has faded away slowly and no matter how hard I try, I can’t get it back. The only thing I want more than to be happy and fulfilled in a relationship is for him to have those same things, first and foremost. The problem is… I can’t give him that, not now, and certainly not forever.
How can things change so quickly? It was a slow boil, the first bits of doubt and feelings of inadequacy as a partner. But once a thought creeps into your mind, it can be impossible to shake. I know he has felt it, the reality that I’m going through the motions, living a lie because the thought of a life without him is terrifying. Lyrics on the radio would echo in my mind: “Do we need somebody just to feel like we’re alright? Is the only reason you’re holding me tonight, ’Cause we’re scared to be lonely?”
Somewhere in the past two years I’ve lost the insatiable desire to be around him. I sense this has robbed him of the joy, optimism and excitement for life that are his best traits — dulled by the exhaustion of constantly trying to please me. He is so perfect — a lean body, broad smile, warm and inviting eyes. But I no longer feel attracted to these things. The charisma I used to admire turns on a dime to annoyance. The awareness that these abrupt mood swings are unreasonable means I can never seem to articulate what’s going on in my head. Instead, I shut down, afraid that my words will come out wrong. He perceives personal fault, rather than realizing that my misgivings are the true culprit.
And yes, while every couple fights and passions ebb and flow, at what point do you know that a relationship is no longer worth saving? I asked myself this over and over and weighed the alternates; stay together, invest more effort, and learn to settle, or walk away and risk the regret of a lifetime? The hardest part is knowing we’re in way too deep. We’ve built our lives around one another for five years. Intertwined our families and friends. Shared everything but perhaps our deepest secrets. How do you separate that, and worse, how do you break the news to your other half that it doesn’t feel right anymore?
I’ve contemplated these questions for months, I’ve grieved and cried and ran until I couldn’t feel anything at all. Through all the sleepless nights, the words gone unspoken, the reality began to settle like a rock at the pit of my stomach. At the very core of my being is the simple reality that I’m not in love with him anymore. What we had together is lost, and it is my fault. While I will always care for him deeply, I no longer love him the way I used to — the unconditional love inherent in a committed relationship. The kind of love he deserves.
Freedom
I can see our lives laid in front of us like a predictable drama about a modern-day family. They get married young and enter modest professional careers. They have children and eventually settle into a city to call home, one of us sacrificing personal dreams to stay home and raise the kids. Grandpa and Grandma visit incessantly, spoiling the grandkids at every opportunity. There will probably be a dog (a golden retriever perhaps), maybe even a minivan and a white picket fence. There is ample routine and equal amounts of comfort. Perhaps it would be enough, but I’m entirely certain it isn’t right. At least not for me.
I’ve read over and over that happiness is a condition. It is a reality we must create for ourselves and work to maintain every day. You choose to wake up and be happy that day, just as you choose to wake up and love the person laying next to you. I believe this, and I believe that anyone constantly in pursuit of the next best and brightest thing is doomed for perpetual disappointment.
But I’m not looking for better; I’m looking for right, and I can’t shake the burning intuition that this isn’t it. More fundamentally, I can no longer ignore the feeling that I need to be set free. I need to learn to love myself without external validation. To look in the mirror and remember there was a time when I alone was enough, when I could simply love myself instead of worrying about every little flaw or pleasing others. To focus on restoring my confidence and my inspiration, to stop worrying about faking optimism and satisfaction in order to keep someone else happy. The burden has become a weight I cannot imagine bearing for years to come.
So what does the future look like? I am not interested in anyone else, and I know there is likely no one else on earth who will love me the way he does. To move forward doesn’t mean moving on to someone else. For me, it means setting him free to find someone who will love and cherish him. He may not be able to see his future without me, but I can. I can see him with a person who loves him unconditionally, with her whole heart, the entirety of her soul. Someone who will to give him a family and shower him with the affection he wants, needs and deserves.
I’ve waded through the murky depths of my own heart and know I can’t hide the truth any longer. But how do you put words to these feelings, how do you express that everything has changed? That you’ve gone from being mindlessly in love with a person and a way of life to the gradual realization that it’s all wrong. Ignoring the creeping doubts until one day you look in the mirror and fail to recognize the person staring back at you. You realize it all happened so fast that you were blind to the undeniable reality that it was not, in fact, destined for forever. How do you articulate these enormous, intangible, shattering truths; how do you tell someone you still love that you’re no longer in love with them?
