Sex and the Single Soccer Mom

So…for the past two weeks, I’ve been struggling. Don’t get me wrong: I look fine on the outside. If anything, I’ve been putting MORE effort into looking pulled together and cheerful. I smile and laugh and make plans. I go home and spend meaningful time with my lovely children and accomplish necessary tasks. I’m exercising and taking care of myself. On the outside, I look normal.

On the inside, frequently throughout the day, I look like this:

“The Scream” ~ Edvard Munch

Of course, this is an improvement from last November, when my lover ended our relationship with no warning. I felt such overwhelming and unrelenting grief for weeks. Breathing, living, being forced to exist in such pain was agony. I was more like this, every single moment of the day…for weeks and weeks:

“Ophelia” ~ John Everett Millais

My lover blames his inability to be in a healthy relationship with me on two things:

1. My life isn’t what I want it to be, therefore I need to focus on feeling better about my life and my successes, rather than focusing attention on a relationship. I don’t know how long this process will take, but I am incapable of truly giving to someone.
2. My feelings for you have a strange duality. When I am with you, I can’t get enough of you; the conversation is fantastic and I always feel like I get wonderful insights from talking to you; I think you are an amazing woman; our sexual relationship is fantastic and I love you. When I’m not with you, I don’t find myself moved to contact you, I don’t daydream about you or what our life could be together and I feel like I should feel/do all of those things
3. Conclusion: Something must be missing from our relationship…or maybe it’s where I’m at in my life…no, I think maybe something is missing…or maybe not and it’s just me…then again, I’ve felt that before when I was younger and I think it’s possible I’ll feel it again…but maybe not…I’m such a fucking, confused mess (Uhm…I might be paraphrasing that last line according to my own interpretation.)

I’ve been so confused and hurt and angry over this situation, that I took 15 minutes to meditate quietly before he came over last Wednesday. What is it I want? What can I live with? How do I want to write this ending? I tried to focus on what I’m GOOD at–love, intuition, empathy–rather than what I was angry about. When he arrived I hugged him and got him a glass of wine. He was tense, I was heartsick and nervous. Eventually, though, we managed to find our way and truly talk about things. By the end, I was reminded of the reasons I came to love him.

I told him I couldn’t be in a romantic relationship with him anymore, because none of my needs were being met. He offered the above reasons why…to which I am able to offer nothing. I love him and I acknowledge that love will die with nothing to nourish it. A few years ago I would have clung and continued to try to make the relationship what I wanted, despite everything. Now, there’s a part of me that echoes my brother’s sentiments on the subject: “He doesn’t deserve you.”

We are going to have one last night together. A “no holds barred” sort of night, because afterall, the pressure is off, right? Hopefully he can BE with me, be the man I love and have seen so little of since we reconnected. The man I love has been hiding under this self-centered and apathetic shell. Afterall, it’s one night. It’s easier to be your best self for one night, rather than have to continue to rise to that ideal day after day. We both walk away from the relationship with one last, fabulous memory.

Still, I am dealing with sporadic moments of intense sadness. Perhaps it’s unfair (he says it is, of course), but I can’t help but feel like he is looking for a fairy-tale. Grown-up love doesn’t feel like high-school, college-age infatuation; when you find someone who makes you 90% happy at the end of every day and that you have an incredible relationship with, you don’t throw that away because you don’t daydream about them. Maybe I’m wrong. Maybe he’ll meet a woman he gets all fluttery about, daydreams about, wants to be with every moment and who will wind up as an incredible partner for the rest of his life. Yet my gut instinct is telling me this is still much more about him rather than “us”, not wanting to limit his options, being afraid to commit and feeling like he’s not succeeding at life. It all boils down to the same thing. We’re not right for each other.

Now if only I could convince my heart of the wisdom behind my choice. If only that churning sadness would go away based on the realization he has done nothing to deserve being with me. Why can’t my emotions catch up to my logic?

I think this is what my lover (ex-lover?) is looking for..

“Not Like The Movies” ~ Katy Perry

This entry was posted on May 14, 2012 at 7:57 pm and is filed under Dating. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.