Feeling Fragile

There are a lot of people in my life who are experiencing a break-up - or have recently experienced one - and it’s starting to make me nervous.

I don’t think I take my marriage for granted, but I’m sure that none of my friends who have been or are now splitting up took theirs for granted, either.  How is it possible that one day, out of the blue, a partner can come to another and say “I just don’t want to do this anymore”?  How can people treat each other that way?

There are four friends, who I can rattle off the top of my head, who have had just that happen to them.  One day, their spouses came home and announced that their relationship just wasn’t working anymore, that they didn’t love their partner anymore (one doubted that she ever really had) and that they wanted out.  TO A PERSON, all of my friends have told me that they never saw it coming.  They were happy - or, at least, content.  There were no overt tensions, no fighting, no clues that the other person was unhappy.  As a matter of fact, all but one has told me that, just before the dreaded announcement, things seemed to have been going particularly well.  Things were clicking.  A rhythm had been established.  Life was good.  Then, all of a sudden, all of it comes crashing down.  How do you defend against something like that?

I am sometimes frightened by the fact that I have all of my proverbial eggs in my husband’s basket.  I trust him completely, I love him fiercely, and I cannot begin to imagine what my life would be like without him.  I am horrified at the thought of losing him, whether to someone else or to heaven.  Attending April’s funeral was so profoundly difficult not only because she was my friend, but because I was projecting her loss onto my husband.  In April’s case, she left behind two men who loved her: her ex-husband who, even though he’s moving on after their divorce, would have preferred that they never spilt up in the first place, and her partner for the last five or so years, who just seemed so hollow and bereft that it hurt to look at him.  How would I go on?

I guess it all comes down to faith.  There are a lot of things in this world that we just have to believe in.  I choose to believe that my marriage will last.  I choose to trust my husband with everything - all that I have and all that I am - and I choose to live up to his faith in me.  It’s a frightening thing, loving someone so much, but I can’t imagine a life without it.