Comment from MCD
Just about the time that I decided that I was truly in love with him (and ended my painful marriage over it), he began to drift away. It was only a matter of time before it was over. And it was ended in the worst possible way I can think of, after weeks of wondering what was wrong, and being told "nothing", my suspicions of someone new were confirmed. He had been seeing her for a month behind my back. And it happened right before the holidays. Suddenly, I was a single parent, alone like I had never been before. The ease with which I was replaced was so painful. Finding out how happy he was, was even more painful. Everyone said, "Go out, date, meet someone". I just wasn't ready. And my child was suffering and angry and needed me. But I went through the motions, each new date seeming worse than the one before it. A pattern began to emerge. I was comparing each new guy to the "him". And, big surprise- no one could hold up!!! Brad Pitt could have asked me out and I would have found something wrong with him. I wanted him and only him. And he was gone, forever. Even if this new love of his didn't last (which it didn't), I was completely out of the picture now and for all future time. I accepted this but it still hurt like nothing I'd felt before. Even the end of my marriage wasn't as painful. (We'd stop caring about each other years ago). This was the first person I'd really connected with emotionally in years. The reasons it ended were complex and baffling to me. I wrote letters to him expressing all that I was going through, not to ever mail them just to get it all out, no matter how unacceptable my feelings were. Feelings don't have a conscience. It helped. I forced myself to go out with friends. About the only thing that really worked was realizing that the person I thought I had been in love with, didn't exist. And hadn’t for some time. The incredible rush of romance, lust and love that he inspired in me in the very beginning, was not who he was now. How much of it was me projecting what I wanted him to be, and how much of it really was him is hard to say. The line is blurred, even today. Suffice it to say, writing and keeping a list of things (mostly thoughtless things he said, did and ways he hurt me) that shed a negative light on who is now helped. When I'd start longing for him and what we had at first, I'd whip out my list of "Why _________Is a Lousy Boyfriend to have". Being reminded of things that made him very much less than the image I was missing helped. I had just hit a major reality bump and my head was still spinning and hurting. I realized over time that whether he really was who I thought I'd fallen in love with and then changed, or he never was, or somewhere in between, didn't matter. He wasn't that person now, and hadn't been, for me anyway, for a while. And now he was lavishing all of that attention and romance on someone else. While I was really hurting, he was out enjoying himself. Remembering that helped, oddly enough. It hurt, but it kept my eyes open and didn't allow me to drift into the Never Land of Relationships Past. I'll always love him, or who he used to be. But I can't live with a memory, and a memory won't be "there for me" when I need him. Am I completely over it? No. But I'm putting things in perspective, and that's a start.

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