Was this relationship really serving you?

When I was younger, I’d see bag ladies on the street talking to themselves.  I’d think, “How’d you come to this?  Something awful must have happened.  You must have made the worst life choices, picked the worst men…” until I got left after 24 years.  He walked out with one overnight bag, and left me with everything else to deal with.  (Sound familiar?) The house, all those photo albums of our life together, all of his possessions, his clothes hanging in the closet, his razor still next to the sink.  It was eerie, like he’d died in a car accident or something.
But that was how this relationship ended.  It crashed and burned, or so it seemed at the time.  (More on all the tell-tale signs I ignored later.)  And I thought, “Oh, Bag Ladies, I get it now.  He walked out and then you just thought, ‘I don’t want to live through this.”  And so, you walked out the door too.  And the delusions in your head are so much easier to live with then the reality of what your life has come to…I get it now.  But that’s those unfortunate woman. By the grace of God that’s not myself, or any of you reading this.  We went through (or are still going through) the grief, the feeling we’d been punched in the face or knocked on our butts, the sadness, the hating ourselves for getting old, for “not being perfect enough”, the anger at him. But then, one day, the realization came that this could be a new opportunity.  That we weren’t really happy living the lie.  And it was a lie.  If he hadn’t left you, you would’ve just lived with it. (Whatever your version of “it” was. Silence, battles, resentment, you can make your own list – or not. 🙂  Cause life was pleasant enough…you both walked through your routines and it was fine.  It wasn’t great, or euphoric, or orgasmic, but come on?  No relationship can sustain all that, right?  Day, after week, after year, after decade, it just kinda became what it was — a comfortable old quilt you wrapped yourself in and took a kind of Relationship Nap.  But life goes by and people change, and now, because he walked out the door and left you with all the shit to deal with, it is, in some ways a gift.  The Gift of Emotional Freedom.  Not Napping Through the Rest of Your Life.  Putting on the “happy face”.  And not being co-dependent.  Not taking care of someone who doesn’t lift a finger to take care of you.  That is not a relationship…that’s just walking through life like a zombie with a routine.  Not to get all Oprah on you…but was that really serving you?

We all go through major life transitions when relationships end… Through this website, I will share my thoughts as I walk the path of “New-Self” discovery. It doesn’t matter which side of 50 you are on. The real question is, Are you ready to live life? To forge a Path of Your Own Making (For a change!)? Then stop dwelling over the What-Might-Have-Beens and join me. Share your thoughts here, comment on mine, and let’s do this together!