I’d like to think I could just move on. To a different place, and different life. I don’t let myself think of that. The times that I have only make me feel worse. More trapped and unhappy. I won’t allow myself down that route. Though I think it might be helpful to try to decide if this life and all that goes with it, is what I truly want. If I take any cues from my suicidal mind, it would be too easy to say no. But that is, just that, too easy. Far too simplistic and crude to grasp onto. I do not know if I can rekindle a passion for this work, and the animals. I’d need to explore why that passion left in the first place. If it is just the culmination of too much stress, physical work, loss and disappointment, then maybe it can be worked on. I’m not sure. I don’t know how to find my way back from here. I know I seem to be endlessly writing about where I am and where I am going. It is so much of what is going on in my head right now. I need to find something to blame, and it is real easy to point fingers. True, life is very stressful right now. But, it would be stressful wherever I am, regardless. Maybe it is all just a cop out, to not make the hard choices and look at what needs work. Far easier to look at the foot high stack of bills and say voila, then to look at a 15 year relationship as it crashes and burns. At the end of the day, if there is one thing I know, it is that I am not happy. I know I am standing still in a provisional life, not growing and changing. I am stuck, and my mind knows that. It is very hard to think clearly these days, so I may look back on these ruminations as utter bullshit. I know my thoughts are distorted. Much of it very black or white. It is colored by my anger and disappointment. I am still reeling from my partner’s choice to leave this week. It has left me deeply hurt. My gut instinct is to walk away. Whether that is in response to just this week, or a laundry list of reasons is debatable. Though my reaction is so strong to just throw in the towel and walk away, I can’t ignore that. It isn’t fair to her though, or to a relationship that has lasted this long and been thru so much. I am sure I have hurt her equally as bad, if not more so. She doesn’t have the corner on that block. I have often behaved in harsh and miserable ways. She has put up with a lifetime worth of shit in the time we have been together. I could easily hide behind the bipolar, but truth be told, I am an ass. Cut from the same cloth as my father. Impatient, demanding and difficult is the norm. So, couple that with the devastating depressions and it has been no easy ride. I often marvel that she is still here. Though, not really. The distance between us has grown so great, it bears little resemblance to the relationship we started with. We exist in our own worlds. Mine revolving around therapy, meds, and keeping myself together. Hers revolving around keeping the farm going, and trying to keep the bill collectors at bay. She will happily spend hours talking to friends on the phone, or to the people who come to work on the horses, but it is startling if we exchange more than a few sentences a day. The silence so deafening in this house, she often has her ipod on, or computer headphones. Hours go by without anything but the phone ringing. When we are in the car, either she or I are occupied answering email, or she on twitter. I try to engage her in conversations, but usually fail and give up quickly. If it is something way outside the realm of anything having to do with us, the relationship, we can manage. Anything of substance impossible. When did it get so hard? when did it get so bad? I honestly don’t even know. Was it last year? or the one before that? was it 5 years ago? I don’t know. It is such a sad thought. Not even knowing when a relationship fell apart. I think at the end of the day we still love each other. I don’t think that is gone. I may have just pushed her too far. Are all the years of chaos and shit finally adding up? As I have said before, I couldn’t deal with me. Even on a good day, let alone in the midst of a soul sucking depression attached to the couch. It is so easy for my mind to point the finger at myself. Just what I do, and have always done. Beth did something wrong, or fucked up, or wasn’t good enough. All terrific example of just how skewed my thinking can be. It is easy to get very depressed when your brain produces thoughts like that. Though I have to add, I feel there is a piece to this puzzle of her behavior that I am not getting. I know I am missing something. Some critical piece that would make everything understandable. Is it someone else? is it some problem I don’t know about? something she isn’t telling me? In all this silence it would be pretty understandable if I missed something. I’m not a mind reader. That is a huge part of the problem. We have lived together so long now, it is easy to just stop asking questions because you assume you have the answer. We read each other quite well. Has that lulled us into this silent complacency? It is easier to just go along thinking you know what’s going on, never stopping to check your facts. Assumptions are a dangerous thing, especially when a relationship is steadily being lived on them. Our problem is not in our love for one another, it is in our ability to communicate with each other. I think each of us fails to communicate for different reasons. We are very different in that way. I have spent most of my life on a couch, picking at all the corners of my conscience. There isn’t a question you can think of that hasn’t been asked of me. I know what it feels like, and I accept and understand that. I know how critical it is to talk through feelings and thoughts and behaviors. To my partner that is as foreign as space travel. There is no seeking guidance and comfort for 45 min each week. That isn’t it. Talking about feelings, what? we have to talk about those? are you kidding? No, it just isn’t part of the dialog, until things reach critical mass and then it is- you hurt me, or I am scared, or I am overwhelmed. More often displayed in tears and stomping off, rather than words. But I understand where she is when that happens. There is never a quiet moment of sharing what she is feeling. That’s okay, she didn’t grow up like that, nor has she been taught it thru years of therapy. It is one of the hardest parts of transitioning from session to home and back again. They are alien to each other. I cannot say how many times I wished I could have a moment like that with her where we connect. Not in a sexual way, but in an emotionally intimate way. That is what is missing. There is no sharing of deep thoughts and emotions connected to them. There is only the monotony of our existence and what is wrong on that day, in that hour or that minute. It is so very sad. How can we possibly fight thru all this, if there isn’t that type of connection. I know she hurt as deeply as I did when we lost the horse. Yet there was no effort on either of our parts to somehow make sense of it by sharing how we were getting on. There was a brief embrace here and there in the days that followed. But no sharing of our grief as we grappled with it, and continue to. This is what is missing.

Can this change? I guess that all depends on if we both agree it needs to, and if we both agree to work on it. That is a huge if. I cannot see her committing to couples work, nor do I see her being able to effectively change without doing her own work. That is a huge undertaking for anyone, let alone someone so resistant to it. I am sure she’d do great, and it would help her so much, but it does take time and commitment. and it isn’t easy, and it is painful. All things that keep your average person from seeking therapy. It is extremely easy to point a finger and say all the problems are mine, and the bipolar causes problems. But my bipolar doesn’t make her choices, and it doesn’t control her. She is a person of her own free will. She alone would need to decide if she wanted to change. She may be completely at ease with where she is at, I wouldn’t know. I cannot read her mind. Regardless of whether or not we work it out, I love her. I will always love her. I will never make light of all the years she has fought to keep me here and keep me safe. In her own way, she did the best she could do. Nobody can doubt that, especially me. She is wise beyond her years, with the heart that could span galaxies. With a deep sense of loyalty rarely found. She is indeed special. It is easy to read this blog and see her only for the shortcomings, but they pale in comparison to her capabilities. We are all a product of our lives, especially our childhoods. She overcame the greatest of odds and landed on her feet. So, yes, I do love her. More than words could ever summarize. I won’t even try.