Breaking Up When You Feel Married (But Weren’t, Actually)

Everyone loves a Ross and Rachel, until you're the Rachel

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Last year was a hard year. The hardest year I’ve faced so far. Harder than the year I lived out of my car. Harder than the year I was assaulted and moved back in with my parents. And now I face a choice. And there’s nothing harder than choosing. But I’m bringing you in at the end of the story.

Love in the fast lane

Bill and I met in 2008 on set of a film project. I had a boyfriend, he had a wife. But if I’m being perfectly honest, I knew the moment I met him that everything had just shifted. Six months later and we were the best of friends, and my former relationship was over. Six months after that and his marriage was finishing up the paper part of divorce and we were having our first date.

I did try to get him to date other people. Get wild, have a fling, take time to be solo. He didn’t want to. He wanted me. And I… couldn’t stay away. I fell. Hard.

I’d always been squirrely about marriage—never sure that forever was really possible, never sure if I even wanted it to be possible. Until him. He brought up marriage. My heart stopped, and then it just made sense. Of course we would marry in the next few years, fate and wily ducks willing. He was the marrying type, and I knew I wanted forever to be with him. We talked about everything under the sun, we danced in his driveway and made cookies, and had the most amazing sex as often as possible for three years…

We’d been looking for a house to buy together for a few months. I was ecstatic. I didn’t know what our life together would look like, but I was so excited to start finding out. He started getting quiet and moody whenever the topic would come up, and eventually, in my not-so-subtle way, I managed to get him to admit that he was scared. He’d done this before, and he knew how badly it could go, and he was terrified of failing again. More than that, he was terrified of losing me. And he worried that my excitement was about the achieving of a marital-worthy relationship and not about enjoying life with him, in all it’s incarnations.

We slowed things down. Of course we did. As much as it felt like rejection, I knew intellectually that he wasn’t rejecting me, just property and paperwork and the stress of binding lives together. He was seeing all the very realistic downsides, and I was clutching at wanting to try for the entirely possible upsides. I tried to be patient; I tried to live in the moment. I failed a lot. I succeeded some. And to his credit, eventually he did start talking about the future again. But he also started predicting that we would take a break before we ended up moving our relationship to the next level—whatever that might be.

After months of these “break” comments cropping up in his speech patterns, I finally said, “Okay, if you think we really will need to take a break ‘at some point,’ why not now?”

We took a break. We didn’t break up. It sounds so very Ross-and-Rachel, but really, he needed time and space, and I was giving him that.

I felt like his wife

In my heart, I was already married to him. I hadn’t had the slumber party themed ceremony at the crack of dawn, or the camping reception with friends and family… But I felt like his wife. I loved him more than I ever thought possible. I made plans with him in mind, I supported him in overcoming his obstacles and achieving his goals. Giving him time and space was just another way of doing that. I was strong enough. I could love him from a distance, until he found his sense of self and was ready to invite me back into his life. Even now, I can’t help thinking, if we’d taken those vows, what would one year, or two, mean in the long run of forever? I mean it’s all give and take, right? Perhaps it’s just still my turn to give.

For fourteen months we’ve lived this dance. He’s gone back to school, while working full time as a bartender, and I’ve bought a house and gotten promoted and suffered a spine injury and re-learned how to walk all by myself. And I’ve given him space when he’s taken it, and welcomed him home when he’s shown up, and listened to him at two in the morning when he’s a raw nerve of emotion, and watched him collapse with exhaustion as he tries to be everything to everyone including himself… and discovers again that he can’t.

We’ve gone on a couple of dates, shared a couple of kisses, in all that time. I finally told him a month ago—while he was crying that he was no good, that I should hate him for not being able to give me what he thinks I want—that maybe we should stop trying. Maybe he should try dating someone else. That’s when I found out he already had. During our last “good-ish” period, around the time when he was kissing me and recommitting himself to our relationship, he tried going on a date with another student in his class.

I know this is the part where everyone takes a sharp, hissing, intake of breath and waits for the man-hating storm to begin, but honestly, it was a relief. I mean, it was an angering, confusing, frightening, despair-filled kind of relief, but at least he was interested in romance enough to try to seek it out—even if he sought it away from me. I love him enough to want him to be happy, even if it’s not with me. And at this point, I might even say especially if it’s not with me.

Because he’s making an effort now. He’s coming around more. He’s trying to reach out. He’s trying to share. He’s talking about “trying dating again…” and there’s the rub. I never stopped trying. I don’t know how to start something over while I’m still in the middle of it.

And even now, I still feel married to him.

Is there such thing as a second beginning?

To give him what he’s asking for now, I have to give him a fresh start. I have to give us a fresh start. Which means, I have to let go of the relationship we had, the one where I loved and was loved in return, and see what we can build now, with the people we are now. I have to let go of the hurt and distrust and fear, and try to forget that I know his core, and get to know him on the terms he’s presenting now.

I don’t know if I can do that.

The alternative is that I try to move on. After all, I didn’t marry him. And for all his talk about trying again and going on dates… his behavior to me feels more gal-pal oriented than romantic interest. It hurts, but it’s the truth.

But I’m still in love with him. He walks into a room and I can’t take my eyes off him. He speaks and I want to kiss him so badly that I can taste it. He laughs and I want to do nothing but make it happen again. He hugs me and I just breathe in his scent and try not to break down. I’m a mess; how can I move on yet?

So that’s my dilemma. Do I stick with the relationship, such that it is, until he’s done school and has more time and energy to devote to it, and see what that is like? Do I try to find our second beginning with him? Or, do I give up, admit that I can’t see this through, that I need more affection than the odd hug to survive, that I can’t let myself feel happy around him without worrying that it will scare him off again? Do I seek out someone new, who can maybe offer me a different future? Not a better one, just something other than the one to which I’ve spent the last six years growing toward.

I don’t know all that this year holds for me, but I know one choice I’ll have to make in it. And actually, I’m looking forward to making it. The next chapter has to be better than the last. Not easier, just better. I hope.

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