@ENKELI @AuntGlow @heartathome @tyme @Realness @Shaz51 @Appleblossom
For years i have wanted to write about our ordeal but have not been able to all kind of reasons. So i thought today why not start Thursday's climax as a chapter my book
title of book?
(thought maybe?)
The Eternal Bad Guy — How We Parted”
Chapter Heading
The Hour Before We Stepped Away.
Thursday's story and aftermath.
We met an hour before the session.
That, in itself, already carried something unspoken for me.
Thursdays had been ours these last 6–7 weeks — three, sometimes even four hours together.
Now it was reduced to one. Not extended. Not followed by anything afterwards — and that, in itself, worried me.
Just one hour, contained.
My wife had made it clear she would not see me afterwards.
And yet, she agreed to this hour.
Was it because she wanted to see me — or because not seeing me at all would feel too harsh to admit?
I didn’t ask.
I carried the question quietly.
---
We went to a place we had been before, close to the counselling rooms.
At least that was familiar ground — we had gone there together after counselling last time.
But even that didn’t hold its familiarity.
The coffee machine was broken.
So we moved on to another place we had not been before.
It felt strangely fitting — like even the small certainties in my life didn’t quite line up anymore.
I sat down while My wife went to order. She recognised the girls serving and chatted with them for a bit.
I remember noticing how naturally she does that — how easily she connects — and I felt the warmth of that.
And for a while, we were relaxed and easy together.
Small talk. Lightness.
Nothing heavy. Nothing threatening.
We could still do that.
And those moments always gave me hope.
In that hour, I knew we still had something real — not forced, not argued, not analysed.
Just us, at peace.
Two people able to sit together.
That mattered to me.
---
Still, underneath it all, I was holding something.
A quiet dread.
Not just about the session itself —
but about what would not come after, and why she wanted it that way.
Part of me still hoped something might shift.
I had written to her that I hoped this meeting would help us hold our relationship, not drive us further apart.
I had worked hard at my anger beforehand — determined not to let it take over, whatever happened.
---
And so we went upstairs together.
The session began calmly.
We both seemed composed.
Measured. Present.
The counsellor didn’t focus on us directly at first.
Instead, he spoke about patterns — how people grow up, how childhood shapes adult relationships, how ways learned as a child are carried forward without us even noticing.
It was factual. Grounded. Educational.
And it helped.
It gave us space without pressure.
Helped me understand without feeling accused.
For a while, everything felt steady.
Inside, I felt relief — encouraged by the thought that these patterns can be reshaped.
---
Then, toward the end, something changed.
The counsellor checked in with me before closing — about what I had shared last time.
About the darker places I had been in.
About how often I had felt like ending things, facing that deep self-hatred.
I tried to explain how things had shifted.
That I was no longer in that same place.
That I had found some steadiness, some control.
I meant it.
I wasn’t where I had been.
---
Then he asked something deeper.
About my children.
I don’t remember the exact question.
Only what it opened.
---
It wasn’t gradual.
It was like something inside me gave way.
The pain came up fast — and with it, the meanings that felt absolutely true.
That I had been pushed out.
That I was the problem.
That somehow, I was no longer wanted — as if already gone.
In that moment, it didn’t feel like interpretation.
It felt like reality.
Like something I was seeing clearly but no one else.
---
I spoke from that place.
And as I did, the counsellor continued to ask questions.
Trying, perhaps, to understand.
But in the state that had taken hold of me, it felt like the hurt was being opened further and further — each question lifting the lid a little more.
My pain felt greatly intensified.
It totally overwhelmed me.
---
And then My wife stood up, crying, and ran out.
Abruptly.
Her action triggered something familiar — a pattern I had seen before.
I followed her, calling out, asking why she was running away again when I was trying to speak about my pain.
That’s what it felt like.
That when my side was opened up My wife would simply ran way.
---
Both hurting we met face to face outside.
She looked at me.
But said nothing.
I waited.
For something. Anything.
Hoping for some sign of reconnection.
But nothing came.
---
So I turned and left.
Without saying more.
Not out of strength —
but because there was nowhere else to go in that moment.
---
Afterwards, we wrote together.
We said we were sorry it had to be this way.
A kind of closing statement:
That we keep hurting each other, even though we love each other.
That this, as it stands, cannot work.
---
What stood out to me wasn’t just the decision.
It was how different our directions felt.
I had just experienced an hour with her that felt good.
Simple. Possible.
I wanted heaps more of that.
Not pressure. Not deep analysis.
Just time together without our togetherness breaking.
---
But My wife did not.
She chose distance.
Not defined. Not timed.
She needed… distance.
---
And that is where we are now.
Not in open conflict.
Not in resolution.
But in a space where something real has happened between us —
for my pain does not draw us closer, it brought the worst out in me, ever creating more distance between us.
Looking back, I can see two layers to all of this.
What I felt —
and what unfolded.
They are not the same thing.
But in the moment, they were indistinguishable.
The pain was very real.
And her reaction felt like confirmation of it —
as if there was no room left for me.
And once those two moments locked together,
it became very hard for me to see anything else.
Yet now, with some distance, I can see more clearly
that there is shared ground between us.
What I am coming to see, slowly and still often imperfectly,
is that this is not one sided suffering.
It felt that way in the moment.
It felt like I was being pushed out once more,
forced to be the everyone's problem,
carrying the heavy burden of our brokenness no one else would face honestly blaming me for everything.
But stepping back from that moment,
I can also see this:
My wife was overwhelmed too.
Something in her reached a limit.
Something she could not stay inside of.
And just as I experienced her leaving as abandonment,
she may well have experienced my pain
as something intense, confronting,
perhaps even as accusation or pressure she could not hold any longer either.
We were not standing on opposite sides as enemies! Like the voices in my head love to say about us.
We were two people, both hurting,
shaped by years of illness and history,
both trying in our own ways,
and both reaching a point where what surfaced became too much.
That does not cancel my pain.
But it does change how I see it.
It means this was not one person doing something to the other,
even though in my hurt it felt exactly that way.
It was something happening between us
that neither of us knew how to carry together.
For i know there have been times I have also reached my limits, pulled away, or failed to stay present in her pain.
Not always in the same way.
Not always understanding her experience.
But enough to know
this is not one-sided.
What we lived is not a simple story.
It was two realities colliding,
two sets of wounds meeting,
two people trying — and failing —
to hold something bigger than they could manage at the time.
I don’t want to write my story to equalise everything artificially.
I want to write it because how things feel for me without accusations.
And because I no longer want to carry this as
“what they did to me.”
It was something we were both inside of.
And how ultimately it cost all of us, very dearly.
