Starting to “feel” different (with an UPDATE)

When things are good, they’re great! Things have not ever been quite like this. For more than two years I’ve had the incredible support of an amazing human being. Their confidence in me has given me strength I didn’t know I had. This person is my best friend, my biggest cheerleader, my soulmate, my girlfriend, and my wife. Her strength is removing barriers, giving me permission to lower mine, and be vulnerable. She builds me up, and encourages me to - above all else - to feel.  To allow myself the experience of truly feeling the emotions buried deep inside my soul. 

So I did. With great therapy and a safe, caring place to heal - I am starting to feel like there is room for so much more than I have allowed.  There is room for trust. There is room for me, and there is room to share it all with her, and actually feel. To feel worthy of appreciation. Worthy of having pain. Worthy of being loved, and above all, worthy of living. 

When someone says their wife has shown them the door, it usually means something far different than it means to me. My bride, my best friend, has shown me the door, and encouraged me to finally walk through it and face the demons waiting there. 

Thank you my love. 

-----------------------------UPDATE MARCH 6, 2026----------------------------

My love showed herself the door and left. 

She encouraged me to take journey, but the encouragement alone wasn't enough. 

I believe each of our own complex traumatic childhoods are the roots of how we each deal with stressors and anxiety in our lives. Over the last eight to nine months I was needing to vent, and get things out - and all she could do was shut down. She could encourage, but she could not engage for the long haul - or maybe she could have - if I had just given her the chance. If I had felt secure enough to say out loud what I was thinking - and what I was needing. Maybe.. But we will never know. 

I need connection when I am anxious. If the person closest to me is shut down, I grow even more anxious. 

I have felt horrible and one night, after another evening meal of no meaningful conversation I was literally sick, dizzy and feeling odd.  I took my blood pressure and it was 210/118.  I was in the midst of a full blown panic attack - and began to hyper ventilate. 

I remembered how to calm myself down, and got it under control. I also took a blood pressure pill that I realized I had forgotten to take earlier.  I googled that BP and it said, "go to the emergency room." 

She walked through the bedroom and asked what my BP was. I told her, and told her the google suggestion. She never stopped walking and as she passed me to leave the room she said, "then you should go." 

I never felt so alone or abandoned. Where was my partner in this life?  

Weeks later I came home and she was packed, sitting by the door with the remnants of a drink in her hand. She said she was leaving, we'd be getting a divorce. 

If you are reading this saying - there's got to be more to this than what's here - you are correct. But it's not your business. So it stays with us. 

Bottom line is she is gone. Both our hopes and dreams shattered because we didn't know how to get by the walls we built as kids. Neither of us made it easier on the other - not by intention - but in how we handled it. 

How despite talking the talk about honesty, we could not find our way there. The moment things got hard we retreated to places of safety or comfort. 

Now the divorce is nearly final and the couple that thought for sure they finally had it right - are now alone and trying to heal. 

This one hurts.  

There have been moments - where - you know what, I don't want to go on. 

But I don't do it - not for me, but for my kids, and to not lay that on her. 

I have wrestled that demon for decades. I should care about me, and I struggle to do that consistently. 

If you feel that way too - then it's just part of the process. 

Part of healing. 

Part of moving on. 

Part of being alive. 

and part of falling in love.