Another first date?

Why does everything end in pain there is nothing to gain

Love went away, so you jumped to hate

As easily as if it was our next first date

This little poem captured in three lines some of my thoughts about separation after twenty-seven years.

Although we never really had a first date I couldn't understand why love needed to turn to hate. Or why it also seemed to change on a daily basis.

I still loved him, though I wasn't in love with him.

There had been a complete breakdown, too many instances where he wasn't there for me as I had needed him to be and, I am sure there are many things he could say I was no longer fulfilling for him because there are always two sides to a story.

But after twenty seven years, I still felt love for this man, the man that was the father to four of my children. I didn't want anything to happen to him, and I hoped we could maintain a friendship for our wellbeing and to provide a positive example for our children.

At one stage, I had hoped we could find some magic and fall in love again, but it didn't happen.

So it was inconceivable to me after practically growing up together that I would now be face to face with someone I hardly knew.

But that is what happened.

I now had in front of me, someone who it seemed wanted to destroy me, a Jekyll and Hyde version of someone I used to know.

He was angry, he was hurt, he didn't understand, and I was going to feel every inch of his pain if he had to feel it apparently so did I.

But I didn't;

There was nothing wrong with being honest

There was nothing wrong with me saying this wasn't working and that I no longer trusted him to be there for me emotionally

There was nothing wrong with me saying I was unhappy

There was nothing wrong with me saying I needed more

There was nothing wrong with me saying I wasn't in love with him anymore

There was nothing wrong with me saying we had done this too many times for me to want to do it again

The evidence was all there in front of me, and I had to do what I thought was best for me at the time not what someone told me I should do because it was best for them.

It took a long time for me to break old patterns and disengage from the habit of trying to keep people happy and 'fix' this, trying to be heard and have 'my say'.

Despite my best intentions, I was never going to be the person he needed to make him feel better, and letting him reach out to me for support as a friend, in this case, was far more damaging for both of us than it needed to be.

He was hurt by my repeated rejection of anything more than friendship and I was hurt by his choices in expressing that rejection.

Looking back, I know I could have saved both of us a lot of heartache by completely cutting him off from day one.

Because what I hadn't taken into consideration with my view on what a healthy separation should look like is that just like a healthy marriage, it takes two people on the same page to make it work.

And, we weren't on the same page anymore we weren't even in the same book.

It is a shame that for some people, love can so easily turn to hate, and you may be surprised in life by who those people turn out to be.

Trudi Jane