Break-up

It’s been so long…. I’m sorry. What can I say but the usual about work, children, and my continuing ambivalence about public journaling? Combined with my reluctance to actually make the switch to password protection, I have journal block. But, as soon as things get tough, I come running back to my journal.
So. I re-posted the entry that was so briefly up this April about my relationship with Grant. I am so grateful for y’all’s support, but I had taken it down because I didn’t want to see him bashed. After the blow-up, he apologized and we reconciled, but I never felt like we really worked again. We could not see eye-to-eye about my grief over Adam. (I think that it’s healthy, he responded as though it were a threat.) Trying to combine lives with four children is difficult under any circumstances, but our challenges seemed particularly daunting. Mostly, though, it boiled down to the fact that the things that make me happy don’t make him happy, and that was never going to change. I like where I work and live, my friends, and our community. I like hanging out and doing kid stuff. He isn’t happy here. He doesn’t enjoy doing most of the stuff that is our daily bread and butter. When I invited them to join us for a kid's event or music on the green or at the beach or to take the boys out to a restaurant, he’d invariably end up with a slightly contemptuous bored look on his face, playing on his Iphone. Sometimes, I only felt like I interested him when he was drinking and felt like dissecting my psyche.
I’ve felt for months that it wasn’t working, but I loved (love) him, and I kept trying. But I felt as though I were the only one putting effort in. He’s only asked me out on one date in two months. He hadn’t volunteered an “I love you” in over a month. He made repeated comments about women losing their “sexual power” in their thirties and me “looking good in clothes” (implying that they masked my flaws) that felt like not-so-subtle insults.
Yesterday, I went over to his house and told him that I felt like the relationship just wasn’t working. He said “ok.” There was no blow-up. No Declaration-of-Independence-style listing of grievances. He said that he had been heading in the same direction, and “this is just too complicated.”
He’s right. It is complicated. I would have kept trying, but what’s the point when it’s one-sided? Way back in the beginning of our relationship, he told me that love should not be work. I told him that that was totally wrong. That love is something you have to cultivate, but that it’s worth the work. I should have seen that, and a million other things, as red flags about the chances of this working long-term. But I was smitten. I loved how smart and clever and funny he is. I love his voice and his laugh. I love his dark wavy hair. I felt such a connection with him. So well-matched. It was only with time that I realized that while we made many of the same observations about life, we reached different conclusions about their implications.
The hardest thing about all of this is the children. They are attached to each other and us. After the thirty second break-up conversation, Grant and I mostly talked about them. We agreed to stay friends and to arrange playdates for the kids. I figure that they will probably gradually fade away with time, but that seems much less painful than another sudden loss for these four boys who have suffered too much already. We both want to do right by the children, and I know that we will do our best.
When I left Grant’s house yesterday afternoon, I mostly felt relieved. But I’ll confess to also feeling a bit chagrined. Something in me wanted him to argue, to show me some sign that I was wrong, that he loved me, that this was still worth working for. I know better…I know that ultimately it just isn’t going to work. But I guess I wanted to be wrong because in this case it sucks being right.
I went home and talked to my friend, sister, and sister-in-law Maryam on the phone. I took the boys to a swing-dance being held in the street. We had Cracker Jacks and got glow-stick necklaces. I tried to be okay. (I will be.) After the boys went to bed, though, I succumbed to unhealthy curiosity, and looked at his online dating profiles. He had not taken them down for the eight month duration of our relationship. (I know, I know—red flag!) Within a few hours of our breakup, he was back online at Match and POF, trolling for what’s next I assume.
I suppose I just extra know I’m right.