Unrequited Love Blog

This may be a bad decision. As my divorce becomes more real, I’m more afraid I will regret it. That I’m being childish, selfish, fantastical, and trying to act way too young for my age. Not sure what to do about this. I try to think, if I were my own patient, what would I recommend or how would I see myself? It’s hard to get outside of yourself, but I think I would see myself as perhaps a bit unrealistic regarding relationships, but also that I am in a not-so-good marriage and I could probably feel happier with someone else.

The more you talk about something, the more real it gets, the more committed you become to that course of action. I can feel this happening to me with my divorce, I just hope it won’t be an “oops” situation.

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I guess I’m getting mad because something still hurts. Even more now, maybe. I think of Jessica married and having kids and being happy and I just feel sick, sick and lonely. My chest hurts, I’m vaguely sick to my stomach. I see her becoming traditional, hardly ever going out, growing apart from her husband emotionally, bored at home with the baby. (Believe me, this is pretty much what happens in most marriages, according to my textbooks and according to my patients.) I see her husband simply not being able to offer her the level of emotional intimacy she wants, most men simply don’t work that way. Aside:  Of course, this part of the fantasy is ridiculous as well as self-serving, it’s unfair to characterize him as such a stereotype, I don’t know what he’s really like. Plus, I think about the men in my own life (brother, cousin, friends, patients) and I know they love, and love well, but just aren’t good at identifying their feelings and talking — it doesn’t mean they see the women in their lives as two-dimensional objects of ownership. Or another version of that fantasy that I spontaneously torture myself with involves her staying more active and engaged, having a successful career, becoming more self-confident, getting hit on by colleagues on a regular basis (which pisses me off to no end).  Either way, she is retreating into the distance, and I miss her, I swear I do.

But what the hell?  How real can this be at this point?  Even to begin with I barely knew this woman, didn’t talk or interact with her very much.  I know that I should recognize her as a fantasy that has very little to do with the actual person, but it doesn’t feel that way.  It still feels real. And I don’t understand why this love is hanging around so long.  Is this something I am doing to myself to push through my divorce?  Am I just prone to fantasy and she is my current favorite character?  What’s changed is that I don’t feel feverish and crazy, I’m not staying up nights unable to sleep, or unable to eat.  My mind isn’t focused on Jessica 99% of the time, the cognitive intrusiveness of love/limerence has faded considerably.  I don’t really feel “in love” but something remains, I’m just not sure what to call it — love, obsession, fantasy distraction, wounded pride, childhood disappointment?

What I can say with some degree of certitude is that as you get older, falling in love actually becomes more real, rather than less real.  You’re more able to see the other person in a realistic way, rather than placing him/her on a pedastel or looking to them to save you.  This deeper level of “real” to being in love also makes it hurt more, and I think, longer.

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My Spouse is busy telling me she thinks I need to grow up.  That I want this grand passionate love that is essentially a child’s fantasy, the fantasy of an innocent.  She says my innocence is a large part of what she loves about me, and what will ultimately break us apart.

Spouse clearly comes down on the side of stable, companionate love where de-stabilizing passion is naturally minimized over time, and/or does not really exist in the first place.  Certainly, she sees passion as  not a reason to end a marriage, to alter a life course you committed to.  She keeps emphasizing my age, i.e., I’m too old to be having a wild sexual/dating life, I’m pursuing a fantasy more appropriate to someone in their twenties.

It’s so confusing to know what to make of everything.  Spouse may be right.  Although Therapist says Spouse and I do not really share enough values or interests in life to be truly compatible.  Therapist does seem to perceive Spouse as very much being dependent on me, taking advantage of me financially and emotionally/motivationally.  Of course, Therapist doesn’t say this, but intimates it.

Certainly I’m very concerned with my age, feeling too old to be going through all this shit.  I can’t believe I’ve gotten so old.  Just wait, you won’t believe it when it happens to you, either.  One day I was in my early 30s, the next day I was in my late 30s, and suddenly I’m in my early 40s, clearly moving past the age that most people find women sexually attractive.  Sure, I’m scared I won’t ever have a good relationship again.  Sure, I’m afraid I’m sort of fading into the wood-work (the background).  But still, I hate the house, can’t live this way any more, don’t at all believe Spouse will ever be able to change her messiness.  I’m bored, I hate the suburbs.  I’m incredibly sexually focused, more so than I’ve ever been in my life and I had a moderately high sex drive to begin with.  I’ll be god-damned if I’ll sit around not having sex the rest of my life, or forcing myself to have sex with someone that I love but simply am not sexually attracted to.

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Just thought I’d share that I’m feeling sad again today. Depressed, really. I think it’s related to my upcoming divorce and feeling unattractive and alone. I’m thinking a little about Jessica and trying not to. I’m more aware she is likely starting a family, she will be pregnant any day now (if she’s hasn’t already had a baby) and really moving forward with her life, and I really need to not be thinking about her. Even my thinking about her feels intrusive (towards her, I mean).  I really need to not be thinking about a pregnant, married woman.

And I can feel depression on the heels of love, I can feel it coming. It’s partly wrapped up in not being able to be with or get to know Jessica, but bigger than that, too. The bone-weary, depleted, tears-in-my-throat sort of feeling of being disappointed in life, disappointed in myself, having the veils of self-delusion ripped away by reality. “What? Romance? Listen, you’re not that hot. Face it, you’re middle-aged. You really should of just kept what you had. You can’t afford a decent place in the city, anyway. Your dog is a huge problem (and certainly doesn’t win you friends). You’ll be poor and alone, instead of just poor.”

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Over this past weekend, my Spouse called and talked with my mother about a household maintenance issue. Somehow, they ended up talking about our upcoming separation/divorce.  My mother reportedly called me stupid (or said selling the house and moving back to the city is stupid), said I wouldn’t last more than about two months before wanting to return home to Spouse, and that I was never happy anywhere.  Had recommendations on how to “fix” our marriage including cleaning 15 minutes per day, 2 hours on the weekends.  Possibly I should rent an apartment in the city for a couple of months and take my dog (a mean-ass german shepherd) to see if I even liked it or not. It’s funny how Spouse is an echo of mother — both think I am being immature, stupid, need to grow up, should focus on stability, am never happy in my life.

I am pissed off and hurt.  This is my mother for you.  Supporting the Spouse and calling me stupid, although I’m sure her intent is to make my life “better” (or rather, more stable and reliable, which is not the same fucking thing as I’ve discovered over the past 5 years of marriage). Also, this is my mother by suggesting “solutions” that are not practical and are not solutions she herself ever did.  Whose going to rent an apartment to me and a huge, semi-aggressive dog for two months?  And how would I pay apartment rent along with the mortgage when Spouse is still in school and not working? My mother never cleaned house regularly (although the house was never a pit like mine is now), and my mother does not live with my Spouse to know how incredibly messy she is.  Spouse will just drop things (trash and non-trash alike) all around and then leave them there, she just doesn’t see the mess so it doesn’t really bother her.

Of course, secretly I am afraid mother is right.  I am being immature and stupid, I should stay married and come to terms with the fact that marriage is just not all that sexually or romantically exciting, it’s not really supposed to be. That I would be lonely and isolated living in the city, that I will never really date or find anyone to be with again, that the “grass is never greener,” etc.  It’s really hard to know what the right thing to do is.  It feels right for me to make changes, but it is also the case I might regret those changes.  I will miss Spouse terribly if/when we split up, I don’t doubt that at all.  I don’t deny being a shit or being selfish.  But I don’t think the marriage is the right one for me.  Divorce is terribly difficult, but so is an unfulfilling or unsatisfying marriage.

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