laife...

It's been a while...and as most of you know, there's been a reason. 

Richard and I decided back in April to separate.  We wanted to let the big birthdays (his mum and mine) be celebrated happily and so decided not to let people know until a couple of weeks ago.

So much of the last 4 or 5 years for me has had a subtext of struggle and misery.  Completely a product of my non-functioning marriage.  Would I have been happy in Australia if we had been happy together?  Maybe.  Maybe not, but I would not have been as quietly desperate as I was.  Impossible, at the time, to see a way forward, so attached was I to "making it work".  I've been wondering how someone so typically decisive, could have sat on the fence for such a long time.  But the reality is I wasn't on the fence.  Merely committed to an outcome which was not ever going to happen.

I won't bore you by going into the reasons.  Anyone who knows us knows why.  For so long I have known that the chemistry was wrong and almost certainly unfixable, but had to keep fighting.  Fighting because I love him, because I didn't want to be alone, because we'd married each other, because his life is enmeshed in mine, because I was afraid.  Every time I thought we might have a breakthrough I was so happy for a while, only to establish it was a product of his great effort, and was making him grumpy, ill and sad.

I really knew underneath that we would always reach this place, but had to allow myself to get there in my own time. On reaching it, it was easy.  There has been little or no effort in working out how we will both manage going forward. 

It has been described as "amicable",  but we both find that word a bit jarring. It suggests slightly gritted teeth - and there are none.  Just love for each other, relief and a clear view of how we are going to work together to bring Rosie up going forward (between my lovely house and his flat 10 minutes walk round the corner). 

I've had the odd bad week. Wondering how on earth I of the profligate habits am going to work on a budget, going through the long list of people to tell (which is not entirely worked through so I hope you don't see this before I got to you...), wondering who on earth will be suitable to take me on in the future, how I will cope when he meets someone else and wants to take Rosie out with her...  Mostly though, I've regained my peace of mind. 

I'm dog tired, but happy.  For anyone who thinks this is an inappropriate emotion at the end of a marriage,  well it's not when it's complete.  However if one more person tells me how well Richard is looking these days I might well clock them.

27.6.08 19:17