He's gone. Day eight - Post-Disaster Fallout - Breaking Up #7

Today has been the hardest day since Sunday last week.
Today we told his mum that he was leaving me. Yes, I said we. We went to visit, took her for lunch, held it all in check.
We sat on her sofa and held hands... and we told her.

It may not seem THAT important to the outsider, but that fact that WE did it, as a couple... THAT is so valuable.

Last night we slept in the same bed for the first time since he told me he wanted to leave. Nothing sexual, just cuddles and familiarity. He'd asked me to be with him when he told his mum. When he first asked I said no. "You made the decision, you tell her." I growled angrily. As the week wore on and my strategies changed, my dancing got stronger. (For those who are interested in the dance reference, see previous posts... it's relevant).
By Saturday night I had agreed. A united front. A supporting wife. A mother in law who I knew would be wondering why her son was acting so out of character. Not just a little, but a million miles - no, in fact light years - out of character.

During the morning we spoke about the future. Tonight he would leave. "Be honest now." I kept saying. He was definitely coming round to my way. The woman who had got his attention, had got him to smarten up for 'just lunch' and so on was pushed ever so slightly into the shade. Sentences started taking the tone of a man who planned to go on a business trip. "When I'm back we could..." "What if when we've done this, we do that?" That kind of mundane, every day, couplesy talk.

Keep it cool but not cold. I told myself. There was time to cry later, when it mattered. The tears aren't fake, there's an ocean waiting to burst through the ice-sheet right now, but timing was of the essence.

This isn't something calculated. This is what we all do, day in day out. How many get angry at something, but instead of mouthing off there and then, we wait. Not to plan some sadistic revenge, but just to wait for the right moment to show how we feel. That's all I was doing. I had to hold it together at his mum's FOR his mum and for him... and I guess, for me. I knew though, that when I started packing his case, the tension would be like the wire on a bow and one way or another there would be a release. Knowing me as I do, I knew the release would be tears, and lots of them. No begging though. I know better than to do that. Apart from bottoming out one's self esteem, begging makes you look weak, makes you look pathetic. It doesn't bring remorse, regret or a change of mind. If anything it compounds the urge to get away in the leaving heart.

As predicted, and despite my best efforts to contain my feelings, I burst into tears. I went to another room, away from him, but he followed. I guess that was a given. We talked a little, I cried some more. I asked him to promise me that he really was looking to come back once his head was sorted. He said he was. I asked him to promise me that he would not weaken and succumb to 'The Friend' because I knew what game she was playing even if he didn't. He said it was one promise he knew he could keep. Then hugged me so close. We both cried, then he told me he'd find his way back if he could. He told me that in the past week he had learned so much, about himself, about my strength, about us and about what's been going wrong.

I know if I'd tried I could've made him stay. But what then? The first argument, the first couples row, and it would have been thrown back at me. The first big fight and he would leave anyway - but under angry circumstance.
No, I've danced my best dance. I've made every move count, every nuance, every whisper, every indication that I can survive with or without him, but my preference is with him. And as the beat slows, the beat he created, we pulled closer. The intensity of the dance increases towards the close, the passion rises, the need to follow each other's move is second nature. I'm aiming for the trophy, and I WILL win.

Until that point, I will now sit tapping my feet to the rhythm of the next beat, until it's time to dance again.

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