Things have changed.. So much. And yet, I'm back because that same feeling is still there.
The feeling that somehow, something is still missing.
The last time I wrote, I had just moved to Europe (Paris!) to be with my long distance boyfriend, finally. I dropped off the face of the blogosphere (do people still say that?) soon after as I settled into a blissful, busy, interesting, fascinating life in Paris. We travelled everywhere, I played "wifey" while working from home and cooking meals for us.
We lived in Paris for a year. After which he lost his job (it was the European economic crisis in 2013 after all) and my long distance contract with my job in Canada ended. Out of work and out of possibilities for employment in Europe, we headed back to Canada after a 3-week euro farewell trip in Andalucia, Spain. Over our entire relationship, we visited 13 countries together.
Back home (May 2013), we moved back into our respective mothers' houses until we could find jobs here. I found my job in August and he found his in January 2014. We rented a place by February and moved out of our moms' places and back into our couple life. Except that it was all real now, the novelty of the long distance relationship and the yearlong honeymoon in Paris was far behind us.
I hated his furniture. He hated mine. Yet I loved him deeply and wanted a life with him. We found a middle ground, (where in retrospect I think neither of us were fully happy). We lived in this middle ground we called life for 2 years until we bought a house together (January 2016). The house sealed the deal for us, we were nearing 5 years together and we were gonna raise our family there.
Except that once again, we couldn't agree on anything (wall colors, a new couch, Internet providers, etc). Everything was a constant battle. I always put up a fight, but I always ended up caving in before him. My battle for his love was lost a long time ago.
Probably dating back to June 2014. We took a weekend trip to Chicago, where we had a public fight in the street. I had followed him around everywhere he wanted to go that day, but he wouldn't come in to Marshall's with me for 5 minutes. And so we fought. That night, he said it for the first time : "Maybe we shouldn't be together anymore".
This was the first of many MANY times he would say it over the course of the next 1.5 years. He even yelled it at me, on the eve of the day we were due at the notary to sign the house purchase. "Buying a house with you is a mistake", he yelled.
For so long (1.5 - 2 years) I always managed to calm him down, talk him off the ledge. He never took back his words (in all of our time together, he apologized a total of 1 time). I tolerated this for so long that it started to feel normal. This was our dynamic. He would threaten a breakup, and I'd do anything to prevent it. I loved him.
Finally, two months after we bought the house..
Two weeks after we came back from a trip to Mexico..
March 12, 2016. We were at a fancy fundraising event at the ballet. After freezing me out during the first act, it was during the intermission that he finally said it : "It's over. I want to break up. I don't love you anymore."
I tried to talk him out of it, except this time... It didn't work. - The end -
Fast forward to today: July 12, 2017.
I'd love to say I'm over it. But I don't think so... And so I thought maybe blogging about it might help.
