Back To Normal

It’s been four weeks to the day. Four weeks to the day that we re-engaged our relationship. Is it possible to be deliriously happy while realising that this isn’t right; that the re-contracting did not take; that the cycle seems to be beginning again?

Our relationship was rebuilt on the same foundation that it was originally built - his depression and existential crisis. Perhaps that is a little inaccurate, and unfair to both he and I. I fell in love, and I believe he felt something akin to that. Was it love for him? I can’t say for sure, because I am not him. What I can be sure of was that he wanted to spend time with me, he seemed a little lost when I wasn’t around, he called or text when he woke up in the morning and before he went to sleep at night; his eyes lit up when her saw me, they grew tender when he looked at me in our quiet moments, and he desired me.

He doesn’t now.

And yes, he leaned on me when he was going through his personal crisis early on in our relationship. He said once: You didn’t sign up for this. When I responded: I am signing up for it. He called me immediately to say nobody ever made him feel this loved. He said he had spent 50 years of his life looking for me, and he didn’t want to lose me. He doesn’t say that now. He talks about how all the things I do, and am, drive him away. He said that again 4 days ago when he was unhappy with a decision I made.

The first 2.5 weeks of our re-engagement with each other was all about him - my support of him as he slowly unknotted the noose he had around his neck, and climbed down from the chair. My every waking moment was spent being with him in support, and my every sleeping moment was in worry for him. I felt a huge sense of responsibility. Some have said that I have a Rescuer complex, or that I mother him. I think it is simply that he reached out to me for help, and it is not in my instinct to turn away.

He is stronger now, the noose a distant memory; he’s embarked on the help I’d suggested and set up for him. He is in a better space. At times, even happy (though I suspect he does not want to admit it even to himself). My energy levels have gone down, as I’d had to put aside my needs, my routine, my life to tend to him. Which I did willingly and would do again, I am sure. But I am depleted and in need of nourishment. He seems unwillingly (or perhaps unable) to give it. His thoughts and actions are still centred around him. He will say moving words about my needs and caring for me too. But when tasked with actual action, he becomes distant, petulant, bored.

Like he was last night.

Here I am this morning, feeling deflated, defeated, unloved, invisible, unimportant. And wondering how I let myself undo those 5 weeks of great work I did in getting stronger, and getting over him, in recognising my value. The work that started when geisha came home with a bloody nose.

She might be starting to bleed again.