Here is my response to Nigel. It's a long one so read at your leisure. A wrap-up to provide context and perhaps Nigel's reaction tomorrow.
August 13, 2008
Dearest Nigel,
I write this letter at the beginning of another day with a heavy heart. I think it was obvious by my reaction in the phone call last night that your letter affected me to say the least – not only because of the feelings you expressed but because it has forced me to finally confront the thoughts and emotions that have been swirling on the edges of my own consciousness. It seems that I have not allowed them to fully form and motivate conscious action (though they appear to have been working on the subconscious level). Why you may be asking? I think it is because I am afraid of the emotion they will evoke in both of us. There is even admittedly some fear of what my expressed feelings will motivate you to do – concerns about knee-jerk retaliation or other harmful acts do come to mind as possibilities (and I believe you understand why they would). Yet, as you have heard me say before, fear is not a realm that I will purposely choose to dwell in, and so, I begin to put my thoughts on paper. Unfortunately, words are so limiting and can have so many meanings that I fear that my true feelings will not come across or will be misconstrued. Still, you expressed some serious and heartfelt perspectives that deserve a response. My hope is, however imperfect, this letter will at least be a start.
I feel that I should first revisit how we got to this place from my perspective. When Prudence made her initial overtures back in March, believe it or not, I went through quite a struggle of whether or not to even initiate an exploration of the matter. I knew that I was not happy in my life, particularly with my role at [my previous job] and just the overall work environment there. On the other hand, I knew that you had expressed that you believed changing jobs would be extremely difficult if not impossible. That fact coupled with your understandable concern for your mother and your overall reluctance to leave the Midwest made me, at first, feel that, as promising as a new opportunity with Prudence would be, it did not seem that it was in the cards as they say. It was not until I had a conversation with an old friend (not Joe by the way) that I realized that the reality was that you and I were both unhappy with life and stuck in that state. It was with that new perspective that I approached you about pursuing discussions with Prudence.
I truly believe that my initial hope for this process was that it would be just the push to get us “unstuck.” I was very scared (and still have a little trepidation), but what kept me going was the single thought, “what if this were the exact action that needed to be taken to get us both to a place of happiness and fulfillment with life.” Now, it is my hope that these thoughts are not new to you because I expressed them repeatedly from the outset of the process. If they are new to you then I think that fact may say something in and of itself.
I am seeing now, particularly with your note, that my hopes may have been misguided. Though I believe, through the circumstances that have led to it and followed, the change is exactly what I needed to do, I see we have different perspectives of the desired outcomes for this change. I really want this to change to work. I want the job and my life experience here to be as successful as possible for as long as possible. I don’t think you feel the same. Truly, at the core we probably have different perspectives on our life together and LIFE (as you wrote) in general.
You wrote “we miss LIFE by being apart,” but I hope you will look back and see that, particularly in recent years, I, at least, had no LIFE in Midwest. I didn’t even have a life. I was not living but existing. After so many years of a combination of work and struggle in and outside of our household, my soul was crushed and my spirit was broken. I could elaborate on the work and struggle but if thoughts and specific examples don’t immediately spring to mind for you then rehashing them in a list here will have little use. I had gotten to a point of such brokenness that I truly questioned if I could ever be whole again, and the sad thing is this is not something that was done to me. I let it happen. Slowly but surely, bit by bit, I let go of those things that were essential aspects of who I am to such an extent that I didn’t even know they were gone. I should add that more than one person has told me they saw and painfully agonized over the change in me. “There is no life in you any more,” one person wrote me.
You also wrote in your letter “the problem boils down to the personal and the professional,” creating a dichotomy about my decision that does not exist for me. You have persistently chosen to craft this as my making a choice between the professional life and the personal life, but the reality that is becoming clearer and clearer to me is that I made this choice for the betterment of both my professional and personal life. And so now, in our separation and from your letter, I see what began as a hopeful journey for us may now actually be a hopeful journey for me. Please know this as well, my love for you causes me to cling still to the wish that it will be one for you as well.
There is one immediate result of the change that I should note and here is as good a place as any. In this space where I am now, I no longer feel like a person under siege. I no longer have to constantly justify my every thought and decision -- why am I going to bed at a certain time, why am I watching certain television programs, why don’t I want to go out to eat, and so on. I can just be. It is a good feeling. One that I was accustomed to with any place I called home, but was not present in our home at the time I left.
The truth is I think I looked to you for a love that would support and sustain me through the best and most difficult of times and to give a love that would do the same for you in return. Perhaps this was unfair given the imperfect vessels we both are. We are two people that have struggled mightily with loving ourselves and as much as I have endured a battle in that area, you, my first and dearest love, and are in the midst of full blown warfare on a global scale. Actually, that is not quite accurate. Though a war has been waging over love of self, you have shifted to being a passive rather than active participant in that war. You have, in effect, from my perspective, begun drafting terms of surrender for your soul.
I just reflected on my desire for receiving and giving love in this relationship. I believe you too looked for receiving the same kind of love, but not necessarily to give that kind of love in return. I am now at a place that I can express that this too was unfair. We have not been co-laborers in this relationship, my love – co-dependent, perhaps, but not two people who have truly shared equally in all of the aspects of sustaining a life together.
Perhaps that kind of loving relationship with another person, one that nurtures and supports and even heals, does exist, but again, sadly, my experience is beginning to cause me to seriously doubt it. If that love should ever emerge in my life then I will consider myself doubly blessed. To be completely candid, I would still love for it to emerge from you. For now, it is time for me (and I submit for you) to continue with recognizing that Love dwells richly and deeply around us and that we should look to that for our sustenance.
I want to specifically address the feelings you expressed about Winston because I think the situation is a microcosm of the dynamic (yes, my favorite word) of our relationship. But first, let me apologize if my reactions have seemed to trivialize your feelings for Winston. I know you love and miss him and your having to be apart from him actually does pain me to. Believe it or not, as much as I love Winston and would have missed him dearly, I agonized over whether it was the right thing to do to take him away from the only home he has known. You acknowledge that I am “the better parent,” but I’m not sure what that means to you? Does it mean that you recognize that taking care of Winston -- walking him, feeding him, spending time with him, seeing to his health and grooming -- are not just things you do when you feel like it or when you feel up to it? I have taken care of Winston when I have had the flu, when my back has been out; seen to his grooming; taken him to the kennel when I’ve gone out of town because you didn’t feel you wanted to take care of him in that time; rushed him to the vet when he was sick and you know there are numerous other examples. I’m not sure if you realize, but not once in the five years that we’ve had him, did you say, “Clarus, you sleep in today or you go ahead and go get some rest tonight, I’ll take Winston out”? To the extent that you did relieve me of some of the responsibility, it was with my begging entreaties or stony insistence or both (by the way that is the explanation of why I threw the collar down that one night and kicked down the dog gate. All of that frustration came bursting out in one tremendous fit of rage).
The sad reality is you’ve had five years to demonstrate that you would provide the kind of selfless care that I believe a pet should receive and certainly the kind that I would want any pet that I love to have. You chose not to, and on my part it is a choice I enabled. I did not bring Winston here with me as much because I felt I needed him with me, but because it was the only way he would continue to receive the kind of care I believe he deserves.
Now expand that image to us and I think you begin to see what, from my perspective, has led us to this point. None of this has developed over night. It has resulted from daily choices over seven years.
What all we have both written means for us I truly have no idea. Today, August 13, 2008, this is all I know for sure. I want to be as happy and fulfilled in life as I can be. How that happens I don’t fully know. Recent experience may have put some dents and doubts in my belief that that kind of life is possible, but I have not abandoned all hope. However, I do know that the life I have just come from in Midwest did not allow for the fulfillment that I seek. I cannot go back to that life as it was. I cannot dwell in fear and under the belief that life is all toil and turmoil and then you die any more. I cannot live in a household where I feel under attack and that the responsibility for the care of that home (and for that matter the relationship itself) does not rest equally on the shoulders of both people who dwell within it. I just can’t.
My one suggestion is this. Let us use this time apart to continue to clarify what each of us wants from life and each other. Let us then come together to see if what we each desire is mutually reinforcing, can be achieved better together than apart and the way that we can move forward in building a new life.
I wish I could say that my motivations are grounded in preserving the relationship at all costs. It is not. I love you and have been bonded to you more tightly than any other human being that I’ve known on Earth save maybe my mother. In her case please remember that entering into a familial relationship is by order of nature. Entering into and remaining in our relationship was and is by choice. I love you, but I cannot continue to love you in spite of caring for myself. Our relationship has to be a place where we both feel cared for and loved beyond measure.
This is where I am.
With hopes that all will (eventually) be well,
clarus
August 13, 2008
Dearest Nigel,
I write this letter at the beginning of another day with a heavy heart. I think it was obvious by my reaction in the phone call last night that your letter affected me to say the least – not only because of the feelings you expressed but because it has forced me to finally confront the thoughts and emotions that have been swirling on the edges of my own consciousness. It seems that I have not allowed them to fully form and motivate conscious action (though they appear to have been working on the subconscious level). Why you may be asking? I think it is because I am afraid of the emotion they will evoke in both of us. There is even admittedly some fear of what my expressed feelings will motivate you to do – concerns about knee-jerk retaliation or other harmful acts do come to mind as possibilities (and I believe you understand why they would). Yet, as you have heard me say before, fear is not a realm that I will purposely choose to dwell in, and so, I begin to put my thoughts on paper. Unfortunately, words are so limiting and can have so many meanings that I fear that my true feelings will not come across or will be misconstrued. Still, you expressed some serious and heartfelt perspectives that deserve a response. My hope is, however imperfect, this letter will at least be a start.
I feel that I should first revisit how we got to this place from my perspective. When Prudence made her initial overtures back in March, believe it or not, I went through quite a struggle of whether or not to even initiate an exploration of the matter. I knew that I was not happy in my life, particularly with my role at [my previous job] and just the overall work environment there. On the other hand, I knew that you had expressed that you believed changing jobs would be extremely difficult if not impossible. That fact coupled with your understandable concern for your mother and your overall reluctance to leave the Midwest made me, at first, feel that, as promising as a new opportunity with Prudence would be, it did not seem that it was in the cards as they say. It was not until I had a conversation with an old friend (not Joe by the way) that I realized that the reality was that you and I were both unhappy with life and stuck in that state. It was with that new perspective that I approached you about pursuing discussions with Prudence.
I truly believe that my initial hope for this process was that it would be just the push to get us “unstuck.” I was very scared (and still have a little trepidation), but what kept me going was the single thought, “what if this were the exact action that needed to be taken to get us both to a place of happiness and fulfillment with life.” Now, it is my hope that these thoughts are not new to you because I expressed them repeatedly from the outset of the process. If they are new to you then I think that fact may say something in and of itself.
I am seeing now, particularly with your note, that my hopes may have been misguided. Though I believe, through the circumstances that have led to it and followed, the change is exactly what I needed to do, I see we have different perspectives of the desired outcomes for this change. I really want this to change to work. I want the job and my life experience here to be as successful as possible for as long as possible. I don’t think you feel the same. Truly, at the core we probably have different perspectives on our life together and LIFE (as you wrote) in general.
You wrote “we miss LIFE by being apart,” but I hope you will look back and see that, particularly in recent years, I, at least, had no LIFE in Midwest. I didn’t even have a life. I was not living but existing. After so many years of a combination of work and struggle in and outside of our household, my soul was crushed and my spirit was broken. I could elaborate on the work and struggle but if thoughts and specific examples don’t immediately spring to mind for you then rehashing them in a list here will have little use. I had gotten to a point of such brokenness that I truly questioned if I could ever be whole again, and the sad thing is this is not something that was done to me. I let it happen. Slowly but surely, bit by bit, I let go of those things that were essential aspects of who I am to such an extent that I didn’t even know they were gone. I should add that more than one person has told me they saw and painfully agonized over the change in me. “There is no life in you any more,” one person wrote me.
You also wrote in your letter “the problem boils down to the personal and the professional,” creating a dichotomy about my decision that does not exist for me. You have persistently chosen to craft this as my making a choice between the professional life and the personal life, but the reality that is becoming clearer and clearer to me is that I made this choice for the betterment of both my professional and personal life. And so now, in our separation and from your letter, I see what began as a hopeful journey for us may now actually be a hopeful journey for me. Please know this as well, my love for you causes me to cling still to the wish that it will be one for you as well.
There is one immediate result of the change that I should note and here is as good a place as any. In this space where I am now, I no longer feel like a person under siege. I no longer have to constantly justify my every thought and decision -- why am I going to bed at a certain time, why am I watching certain television programs, why don’t I want to go out to eat, and so on. I can just be. It is a good feeling. One that I was accustomed to with any place I called home, but was not present in our home at the time I left.
The truth is I think I looked to you for a love that would support and sustain me through the best and most difficult of times and to give a love that would do the same for you in return. Perhaps this was unfair given the imperfect vessels we both are. We are two people that have struggled mightily with loving ourselves and as much as I have endured a battle in that area, you, my first and dearest love, and are in the midst of full blown warfare on a global scale. Actually, that is not quite accurate. Though a war has been waging over love of self, you have shifted to being a passive rather than active participant in that war. You have, in effect, from my perspective, begun drafting terms of surrender for your soul.
I just reflected on my desire for receiving and giving love in this relationship. I believe you too looked for receiving the same kind of love, but not necessarily to give that kind of love in return. I am now at a place that I can express that this too was unfair. We have not been co-laborers in this relationship, my love – co-dependent, perhaps, but not two people who have truly shared equally in all of the aspects of sustaining a life together.
Perhaps that kind of loving relationship with another person, one that nurtures and supports and even heals, does exist, but again, sadly, my experience is beginning to cause me to seriously doubt it. If that love should ever emerge in my life then I will consider myself doubly blessed. To be completely candid, I would still love for it to emerge from you. For now, it is time for me (and I submit for you) to continue with recognizing that Love dwells richly and deeply around us and that we should look to that for our sustenance.
I want to specifically address the feelings you expressed about Winston because I think the situation is a microcosm of the dynamic (yes, my favorite word) of our relationship. But first, let me apologize if my reactions have seemed to trivialize your feelings for Winston. I know you love and miss him and your having to be apart from him actually does pain me to. Believe it or not, as much as I love Winston and would have missed him dearly, I agonized over whether it was the right thing to do to take him away from the only home he has known. You acknowledge that I am “the better parent,” but I’m not sure what that means to you? Does it mean that you recognize that taking care of Winston -- walking him, feeding him, spending time with him, seeing to his health and grooming -- are not just things you do when you feel like it or when you feel up to it? I have taken care of Winston when I have had the flu, when my back has been out; seen to his grooming; taken him to the kennel when I’ve gone out of town because you didn’t feel you wanted to take care of him in that time; rushed him to the vet when he was sick and you know there are numerous other examples. I’m not sure if you realize, but not once in the five years that we’ve had him, did you say, “Clarus, you sleep in today or you go ahead and go get some rest tonight, I’ll take Winston out”? To the extent that you did relieve me of some of the responsibility, it was with my begging entreaties or stony insistence or both (by the way that is the explanation of why I threw the collar down that one night and kicked down the dog gate. All of that frustration came bursting out in one tremendous fit of rage).
The sad reality is you’ve had five years to demonstrate that you would provide the kind of selfless care that I believe a pet should receive and certainly the kind that I would want any pet that I love to have. You chose not to, and on my part it is a choice I enabled. I did not bring Winston here with me as much because I felt I needed him with me, but because it was the only way he would continue to receive the kind of care I believe he deserves.
Now expand that image to us and I think you begin to see what, from my perspective, has led us to this point. None of this has developed over night. It has resulted from daily choices over seven years.
What all we have both written means for us I truly have no idea. Today, August 13, 2008, this is all I know for sure. I want to be as happy and fulfilled in life as I can be. How that happens I don’t fully know. Recent experience may have put some dents and doubts in my belief that that kind of life is possible, but I have not abandoned all hope. However, I do know that the life I have just come from in Midwest did not allow for the fulfillment that I seek. I cannot go back to that life as it was. I cannot dwell in fear and under the belief that life is all toil and turmoil and then you die any more. I cannot live in a household where I feel under attack and that the responsibility for the care of that home (and for that matter the relationship itself) does not rest equally on the shoulders of both people who dwell within it. I just can’t.
My one suggestion is this. Let us use this time apart to continue to clarify what each of us wants from life and each other. Let us then come together to see if what we each desire is mutually reinforcing, can be achieved better together than apart and the way that we can move forward in building a new life.
I wish I could say that my motivations are grounded in preserving the relationship at all costs. It is not. I love you and have been bonded to you more tightly than any other human being that I’ve known on Earth save maybe my mother. In her case please remember that entering into a familial relationship is by order of nature. Entering into and remaining in our relationship was and is by choice. I love you, but I cannot continue to love you in spite of caring for myself. Our relationship has to be a place where we both feel cared for and loved beyond measure.
This is where I am.
With hopes that all will (eventually) be well,
clarus
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