You’re The Cause of Their Heartache

Can I take the pain away without sacrificing my needs?

I’m at the desk in my bedroom while my husband is showering, the door closed, in the attached master bath. He’s sobbing hysterically. I’m unsure of what to do. Do I go in and check on him, which goes against any concept of splitting up if I see him naked? Do I sit here in the room and pretend I didn’t hear the sobs that echoed across the bathroom tile? Instead, I jump on Medium and start typing.

Last night was another night of emotional drama, as it seems it is every night after you tell your spouse you no longer want to be romantically involved with him. I pushed for a Parenting Marriage, where we become roommates and friends whose only job is to raise our children.

While it’s not a long-term solution, it doesn’t throw a bomb on life, especially when we’re not in a situation to sell our house and the kids are virtual homeschooling.

He came out, sat on the bed to put on socks. I tell him, “I’m not sure if I’m supposed to check on you when you’re crying or if you’d rather be alone.” Joseph starts sobbing again, telling me loves me and doesn’t want to break up. I can feel the devastation emanating from his body.

I’ve broken him.

Joseph tells me how he had all these plans for us. I reply, “We can still do a lot of those plans, as a family. That doesn’t have to change.” It’s a ridiculous statement to make knowing that the last thing anyone wants to do with a broken heart is to spend quality time with the person who broke it.

My doubt creeps in. Maybe this is a midlife crisis. I’m being irrational all for the sake of finding a new person and getting laid. I’m letting little things bother me that are simply part of life. I sit next to him and hug him as he cries and sniffles that he isn’t meaning to give me a guilt trip.

This is a can of worms I can’t close. Even if I were to say, “Okay! Calling off a separation!” this devastation would forever stay in our marriage as yet another reason for resentment. Every argument would bring up “the time you wanted to divorce” as a reason for my future crappy behavior.

When I start to doubt myself because the strength of my conviction is up against the strength of Joseph’s pain and devastation, I remind myself that I loathe kissing him. I’ve loathed it for over a decade. I crave sex and yet, having sex with him makes me more miserable after than before. Seeing him crying on the bed, I know my feelings for years have been more towards a mothering role since he played a petulant teenager for so long.

I can’t keep being the Alpha in this relationship. The leader of the pack can’t toss the baton to the weakest member. That’s an unbelievably shitty thing to say now that I’ve typed it. Maybe it’s a lack of respect or maybe it’s that I’ve had to play mother more than I’ve played wife, but I just can’t view him as the type of man I could love romantically. Or want sexually. When I’m in the arms of a guy, I need to feel safe and protected. Instead, it feels like I’m holding one of my children. I came across this article on Medium by Kim Petersen about women needing masculinity and it nailed it on the head. Not to get all gender stereotype-y, but I need to be the chick in the relationship.

So…do I stay, thus keeping my family together and stop his devastation while feeling like I’m dying inside. Or…do I leave (emotionally since we can’t physically do anything for a while) and feel like I’m living my authentic self while destroying an already-broken man who is trying to heal himself? Joseph has made great strides this year in personal growth, it’s like taking a bat to his knees when he finally can stand.

In a naïve, perfect world, he would agree that we make better friends than spouses. That we can easily raise our children together with love and stay amicable. We would be those unicorn exes that can still spend Christmas morning together for the sake of the kids. I would be more than fine seeing Joseph dating someone. Can someone wave their magic wand and make this utopian version of a breakup happen for me?

Finally, Joseph stops crying and mumbles something about having a meeting. While grabbing a Kleenex, I tell him that he needs to reach out to one of the myriad of counselors we’ve worked with. It’s hard to not jump in as usual and try to fix everything.

I know that pain of loving someone and them not feeling it back; it’s excruciating. I know what it’s like to want them to feel just as nauseous as I am and to have that frantic feeling of loss consume your body. Part of me wants to just suck it up for 20 years of unhappiness to stop his pain. He’s in agony just so that I can stop feeling miserable. Or rather, he’s in searing pain so that I can possibly find happiness.

I thought telling my husband that I no longer wanted to stay married would ease my torment and remove the weight from my shoulders. It only doubled the torment and I feel like I’m carrying a boulder uphill.

This feels like Alice in Wonderland where nothing is as it should be.