Maybe?

 If I was to equate what I have been feeling these past couple of days to how I've come to understand the stages of grief (a la normal, functioning individuals), I've entered the stage of anger. My thoughts have shifted from the "what if" scenarios, to the "wtf" memoires. Maybe this is fleeting, I am not one to experience "stages" like your average person does; it's not my natural inclination - so to adopt it now would be hypocritical and misguided. 

The one barometer I do have, that seems to work relentlessly and exhaustingly is right from wrong I advocate on behalf of love, tolerance, and understanding. Maybe to my own detriment, I give others the benefit of the doubt until there is simply nothing left by which I can afford their behavior. What's lacking within this fortification of righteousness, is a soapbox upon which I protect my own heart. That character is a muted paralytic weighed down by self-loathing and worthlessness. I sometimes feel like Shirley Mason but with a crippling awareness of every personality's failures.

Do I prefer anger over pain? No, of course not. Like I told everyone, I don't blame my wife for this situation; we came to this point after a very long road and much of the past 3 years was handled poorly by both of us. Everything that came before is why we are here now. No cosmic force threw down the bolts of intervention to sever our marital bonds. There are certainly many moments where I was treated unfairly, as I am sure is equally true from her perspective... and where neither of us trusted one another to be honest about our feelings. There are several emails and letters where I was at the end of my rope (figuratively), that I never sent. I loved my wife with all my heart and I wanted to share the rest of my life with her; I always believed that time would heal our wounds and we'd once again find the path back to one another. It is fair to say, the majority of our time together, one or the other of us had left that path; when I needed my wife the most, she was gone... as I was for her emotionally for far too long. You cannot reinvent this, and circle back to what worked; the scar tissue and pain is thick and at the surface.

For better or for worse... just words, I suppose. Do we mean these things? What does it even mean? What is "worse" - how far do we journey down the wrong road before stopping to ask directions; or just splitting up to find our own correct road?

Anyway, New Year! "It's just sex"... sigh. It's not. 

Listening to: The Cult - "MTV Concert" - The Ritz, 1985