Cutting Contact

The last few days have been absolute and complete hell for me.  For both of us.  I thought I'd been through the worst of it, that things were supposed to start getting better.  But instead I found myself on Sunday lying under my covers hoping I'd run out of air.

We were both in a constant battle between head and heart, a never-ending state of limbo, going from "we need to get back together" to "we need to stop talking" in 30 seconds flat.  We both knew what we needed to do, but neither could face it and so we continued, holding on to each other for dear life and hoping somehow things would just get better.


And then yesterday, somehow, something changed.  I can't even remember how it happened.  We were throwing around all kinds of crazy ideas to try and make it work.  And I honestly don't know how we got from that to this.  But she told me - in no uncertain terms - that if we did get back together, she could no longer tell me that she would choose.  That of course it's possible that things would change...that she and I wouldn't get along long term, that D might meet someone else, that I might...that anything could (but probably wouldn't) happen.  She couldn't tell me she wouldn't choose, but she couldn't tell me she would.  She can't imagine her life without either of us.

And I realized that I love her too much for that.  I want a life with her.  A whole life - marriage, family, the whole shebang, not some kind of half-life where she splits her time between her husband (and the life and family they already have) and me.  If we get back together, I will always hope that she and D will break up.  And she needs me to give up that hope.  But if I give up that hope, of having a full life with the woman I love, am I really loving her the way she deserves to be loved?

And so, we realized that our needs are just too different.  There is no amount of compromise that could possibly make our needs work together.  We realized we had to accept it's over.  And cut contact.  Neither of us knows how something like this works, when it's okay to get back in touch, anything.  But we decided to wait until D goes back to work, on April 15th.  That would give us time apart, but isn't THAT long (even though it feels like forever).  And when he goes back to work, she will text me.  We'll see where we both are, and go from there.

And it's fucking torture.  Every minute of the day, I think about her.  Some stupid thing at work happens and I want to tell her about it.  But I can't.  I want to send her pictures of the kitten, ask how the kids are doing, talk about Grey's Anatomy, tell her I love her, I miss her, I'm lost without her.  But I can't.

But I hold back, because I know we barely survived the limbo.  And it kills me.  But I do.

(So I say on Day 2. Or Day 1. Whatever today is...over 24 hours since we decided not to talk.)