Dec 22, 2009 Posted on Dec 22, 2009 in My Journey | 0 comments

One Crazy Ride

My journey is now 8 weeks old. It has been that long since my wife asked for a separation, I lost my business and I was diagnosed with severe depression and anxiety. This has been one crazy roller coaster ride … let me get everyone up to speed.

About 2 weeks ago I really had a breakthrough. I decided to have fun with this! This was my chance to rediscover who I am, what I want out of life, and reconnect with people again. The business went down, but new opportunities presented themselves. Good opportunities. I ended up getting hired by one of my clients with a stable income and more security. This is exactly what I needed right now. I’m able to keep my home and my family fed. Things were looking up and I was really starting to feel good … that is until … I had to face the challenging issue of being separated from my beautiful wife.

It was really easy recovering from the loss of the business, but with my wife … not so much. My wife and I have been married for 18 years. We met our senior year in college. Both of us weren’t looking for a long term relationship during our last year of school, but fate had a different plan. It was the end of summer and we were just getting ready to start the fall semester when we started dating. We fell head over heals immediately. We talked marriage after the first week and we were engaged after only 28 days. What can I say … when you know you know. When you find the right person you just know in your heart THIS is the one!

Our marriage had its ups and downs like any other, but we always knew we loved each other. We rarely fought. Our typical arguments were usually about me spending too much money on toys or gadgets. However, for that last 7 years or so we always seemed to have the same discussion. Generally it was because I worked all the time, long hours at the office or even working at night after I got home. She would tell me I wasn’t participating in the marriage and she felt like we were room mates. I would start doing better then she would forgive me and things would be good for about 6 months. Same topic would resurface and we’d do it all over again.

What can I say … when you know you know. When you find the right person you just know in your heart THIS is the one!

I was always faithful, never cheated on her, I don’t drink excessively, and I was never abusive. But in hindsight I guess what I was doing would be considered worse than any of those things … I was not doing a good job of showing her my love. She was always giving, she was my rock, and I would start taking that for granted. I always knew she was there for me no matter what. But all that changed this November.

When she asked for the separation I was completely blindsided. Of course I was already reeling from the business, but this was 1,000 times worse. So I lost it. A complete mental breakdown, depression, anxiety … it has been unreal!

Since that time I’ve made a lot of progress. This past Friday I came home from work feeling really good about myself and the path I was on. I was having fun again. I felt alive! That evening I approached my wife and told her this doesn’t have to be this way. Why don’t we renew our courtship, start all over. She flatly said no. She was not ready. Talk about a buzz kill! I felt completely deflated. What? Don’t you even want to discuss this? Of course not … she was feeling pressured.

The problem is I couldn’t grasp the concept of her not wanting to be with me. She had asked for space and time, I wasn’t giving it to her. I wrote love notes to her, wrote her poems (the same poems posted on this site), long emails talking about how much happier I felt, profession my love, texting her about how much I was thinking about her and missing her. I thought it would help if she knew what was in my heart. Wrong! What I was doing was pushing her further and further away from me. She didn’t want to hear that. She wanted to see my progress herself without me shoving it in her face. There was no desire to discuss the marriage right now, she wanted me to focus on making myself happy and get better. She wanted to see personal growth in me. No matter how many poems and notes I sent she wasn’t buying it.

I challenged her on her faithfulness thinking she may have found someone else. I was very jealous. That pushed her away. Then I did something even more stupid … I texted one of her friends to gain insight. Of course the friend told her and I had crossed the line again. All of this has been going on for about 4 weeks and each time I would end up making her feel pressure. I was really not getting it and the harder I would try the further I would push her away.

Up and down, this roller coaster ride. I would feel good, write her something, get pushed away … and then I would crash. Each time sinking back into a depression. This week we finally cleared the air and I’ve come to realize my actions were inappropriate and selfish. She asked for space and privacy … I wasn’t giving it to her. Now I finally get it. She wants to see if the person she married still lives inside me. She wants the opportunity to see the real me and determine if she still wants to be with me. She wants to see if she can fall in love with me again.

My challenge now is to find myself and be myself without involving her. It is extremely difficult to show her how happy I am and how much I’ve grown while I’m sitting here with a broken heart. But I’m determined. I feel completely responsible and guilty for the way I’ve been ignoring her. I can’t believe I’ve missed it this whole time. All she wants is a husband to love her back and show her how much she means. And I was too consumed with working and running the business to pay any attention. How foolish and selfish I’ve been … she deserves so much more.

So now I press on finding happiness in just being me. She is my best friend … so we’ll just start there as friends. It’s taken me a long time to figure that out … but hopefully I can finally get off this crazy ride!