Reflections on My Marriage

I've been remiss about writing lately, partially due to traveling for work and partially due to dealing with some health stuff.  However, mainly I've just had the overwhelming feeling that I'm drowning lately.  As a result, my brain has somewhat shut itself, and in effect me, off from everything.

I've actually been hanging out with a guy for the last few weeks. Very nice guy, he seems somewhat interested but in my opinion not interested enough. He makes some effort, but not enough. And his lack of effort is resulting in my disinterest so I guess that is karma at work for you right there - what you give is what you get back :)

This time of non-movement has afforded me some freedom to reflect.  Images of the last 4 years have been flashing by, some bring me to tears and some make me smile. It's like my brain is processing the last four years. I suspect this started a couple of months ago, and I believe this is what the Sage Shrink referred to as "grieving".

Nonetheless during a recent reflection (read: flashback), I realized that I carry around a great amount of anxiety because of the lies my ex told and how shocked I was to found out that all was not as I thought it was. It created a ripple effect in me where I started to question and doubt everything - because I never really knew where the truth stopped and the lies started.  Were they all lies?  This question has haunted me for a long time.

Then I realized - it is somewhere in the middle.  The truth is, when we met we were different people than we were today. He was a person who would lie in order to get approval. And I was a person who desperately wanted to be approved of.  We checked off every item on the 'suitable partner' checklist (too naive to realize that a checklist does not make true love).

During the eight years we were together, we grew into different people. I grew to be someone who realized I deserved approval. And he grew to be someone who....well still lied in order to get approval.  See the disconnect?

So it doesn't matter what was real and what was not - it was a fit in the beginning because we were both looking in the same direction. But when one person grows and the other does not, sometimes the disconnect becomes to deep and too distant to where it is no longer a fit. 

This realization has brought me some amount of peace.  It removes some of the burden of distrust from new people I meet. It removes the burden of guilt from myself for not being wiser all along.

I was on my path, and he was on his. But my path was never stagnant, I was always moving forward.