As April Ends, So Ends A Love

It all started after a very loving weekend, weekend before last.

She held me tighter than ever before in our year and a half together.

She had called that week and said, "I love you. I want to see you this weekend".

I was so happy to be with her.

Then, on Monday, the dam broke, badly flooding the rest of the week.

She called me and said, "I have something to tell you, but you can't tell anyone else. You have to give me your word.".

I agreed, wanting to hear what she had to say. I figured it must be important to her to tell me, otherwise why would she have asked for my word?

Later, she said I was the one person she felt she could have confidence in and I betrayed her trust. But that is a another whole story.

Her wealthy ex-boyfriend, for whom she worked for now and used to date before, had been in a hit-and-run accident. She told him to park the car in the garage until he could figure out how he wanted to handle it.

I knew she was very upset about this information and appeared to really need to tell someone so I gave my word and I listened. Not until I had this information for several days did I realize I had really compromised my freedom. I had this information for days and I didn't tell the police.

Monday was a bad day.

But it got worse as the week progressed.

Tuesday I had a difficult day and really needed the comfort of her voice. When I spoke with her early in the day, I asked her to call me that evening.

No call.

Wednesday, I took my daughter to a family therapy appointment and I called her again, asking her to call me later. I knew I would need to speak to her after dealing with my young daughter's family session. And I did.

No call.

I texted her later in the evening and said my daughter was having a supervised timeout with her young friend and had taken the computer and the TV. I really needed to talk with my significant other and asked her to call me if she wouldn't mind.

No call.

Thursday she was scheduled to speak with my psychologist to help with the problems we were having that week. She failed to confirm the appointment early in the day and ended up not making the appointment.

Bad day.

She had missed the appointment the week before to discuss why she thought my daughter would probably be pregnant by the time she was nineteen and the fact that I didn't own a house.

Because of these points, she had said she needed to consider things and decide what she was going to do. It appeared she was going to decide if she wanted to be with me or not.

This week's discussion was going to be about what had happened earlier in the week, which is what I am describing now.

She had agreed to take the hour with my psychologist and then didn't follow through with her commitment, just like she had done the week before.

She had a nine-month history of leaving me abrubtly and no contact until I went to her and we were able to make things clear. She had cried everytime I went to see her and then said she was glad I had come. I had thought we repaired the damage to our relationship and repeated this process six times in total over the previous nine months.

Needless to say, this was a ship that was in trouble and in danger of sinking.

So that history, in combination with the above-mentioned events left me with a sick feeling in my stomach when she missed the therapy appointment.

I drove down to see her to try to understand what was upsetting her and making her act in such an undecipherable way.

The meeting went terribly wrong and I realized I had probably lost my fiance, even though the reason for my being there was due to her behavior:

> Missing the two agreed-upon therapy sessions
> Missing calls she agreed to make two prior days in a row
> Relating information from an ex-boyfriend that had me
feeling she was going back to him - why else would she
be the only person he told? Again I was acting on the only
information she was willing to share with me. According to her,
the ex-boyfriend was just a friend, according to the ex-boyfriend,
she was his girlfriend. Just the way things turn out sometimes.
> Relating the ex-boyfriend's information jeopardized my
freedom by simply knowing about an unreported accident.

In hindsight, I made all the wrong decisions due to a lack of information. Again, not her fault, just the way things turn out sometimes.

Friday she was speaking with me, emailing me on Saturday and Sunday. Things had the appearance of getting better.

And then, to start the final end of our relationship, and as part of the 12-step program, she writes emails that end with a misplaced apology that did not fit the rest of the email's content.

As far as I have been told, per the AA Big Book and the Twelve Step Program, the purpose is to make amends with yourself and others and then cut communication with bad relationships. This was a hurtful relationship and, apparently, while you were going through your steps, you had to cut these type of relationships because by continuing, she would be hurting me and subsequently herself, and vice versa. Assuming this was correct, I could understand the value to a person trying to straighten out their problems with past alcohol abuse.

The way our relationship was tanking, appeared to me to be because of her inability to decide if she wanted to be with me or not. This is what had been happening for quite a while with her.

I wanted to be with her, as she was, no changes. Just wanted to love her.

Not being able to decide if she really wanted me - lack of money and no home owned - caused a dilemma that resulted in behavior that didn't make sense, at least not as far as I could see it. And this resulted in my responding to situations that didn't make sense and you can figure what a mess that can make of what once could have been, in my humble opinion, and, at times hers, a fine relationship.

See, sometimes it doesn't pay to get out of bed.

As a matter of fact, it can be downright debilitating to one's future with the person you love more than any other you have ever met in your life.

So unprobably true, it has to be fiction.

Which is what I wish it was - just a bad nightmare I would wake up from to find my true love truly loves me. And my future is bright and shiny and paved with flowers. Birds are chirping in the trees overead and deer play in the meadow. But there were storm clouds brewing.

Instead, what is left now is like an ugly, blackened landscape: burned trees; no life anywhere. No hope. Just a burned out, mishandled version of it's fomer self. An insecure person wielding nonunderstanding and pain from past mistakes - alcoholism, bad relationships - like a club. She said she had lost the highest priority in her life: having five children.

There is a large feeling of hopelessness and despair in the above, only to be brightened by the success of her nine years of clean and sober living after 35 years of alcoholism. Alcoholics Anonmyous had served her well in relieving what was obviously a very difficult habit to give up.

Kudos to her for accomplishing this difficult-to-achieve feat.

These things all added together, including a case of dyslexia and all of my mistakes, and you have what brought down the best relationship I had ever had. This is not fingerpointing. This is just the way things turned out. My fault as much as anybodys; I stayed with her when things starting going horribly wrong. I should have left, but I already loved her too much.

Totally my responsibility.

Now anything we had was all going away like it was being sucked into a hellish whirlpool going nowhere for no reason.

Just lost, to me and to her.

Yes, I made mistakes.

Big ones.

But I loved her more than anyone I had ever loved before.

I would have done anything to save this relatioonship.

Now I only have the ability to let it go.

This is her wish and this is what I will have to do.

It could have been a really good relationship.

One filled with happiness and joy for a lifetime, or so I had thought.

Aside from the mishaps, we loved each other. We didn't argue and were glad to just be alone with each other. Cuddling together, playing and singing music, lovingly loving each other, finding common interests together and sharing wonderful times. So hard to find and welcome when you do.

Something most people dream about but only rarely achieve.

Worth fighting for in my opinion.

Now to be only saved by a miracle from God.

If she would have told me what was really on her mind, instead of making decisions in a vacuum, with facts that were not true or, as in a lot of cases, just misinterpretations of events that had happened, we might have had a chance. This is not her fault; just the way things work out sometimes. My reactions to her actions had as much to do with this relationship failing as
anything she did.

Now lost for no understandable reason. At least not to me.

How about you?

Now what do you make of that?