So yesterday I got dumped at lunchtime. Eight years. A time both short and long by many measures. I tried to get back to working, couldn’t. Left work early, they were understanding.

Talked about it with my now-ex, she was set on it. She has her own stuff to deal with and she wants space right now. Fair. As much as it hurts, I get that. She also doesn’t want to try again, even through couples counseling. At the same time, she’s scared of losing me. I’m not emotionally mature enough to wait or do the friend thing, and I don’t think that’s fair on me.

This started on Wednesday evening, or rather, it started a while ago, but this started Wednesday evening. Partner comes home, is feeling upset. I dig, she said she didn’t want to say anything. I keep digging; I’m not the perfect partner, or even a great one, but if there’s something I can help with I want to help.

And then it came forward.
She feels we need to be apart and wanted space, and she needs to work on her own stuff, but she’s scared of losing me, but she doesn’t feel the same way about me as she’d had previously.

Not her exact words, and I pried more because it sounded like I was being dumped, and that’s not what she wanted to do, but she wasn’t sure… these things are, of course, hard. It is, as is the norm, a complex situation.

So then I was, but I wasn’t. But I slept in the empty room we weren’t finding a housemate for as we preferred to absorb the cost if it meant we weren’t worrying about a third. We’d both had troubles with other housemates, and so absorbing the cost meant I was fortunate in a saddening way.

Yesterday day I called my partner during lunch. We were meant to have an inspection and she worked from home to be there for it, but it was cancelled as the inspector was ill, which she messaged me about earlier in the day. I was still upset so I ignored it, but I called around lunch and got the full details. We then went on to discuss the issues further and I got dumped. We kept talking, but eventually had to stop. Tried to get back to work, couldn’t. Left early.

Went home, walked around a bit, eventually went to our room. We spoke about it some more.

I don’t want to get into the details of my partner’s life. She has things going on and she needs to deal with them, and I’m sure she will. If this is how she feels she needs to go about it – with distance from me so she can deal with them on her own – then I need to respect that. Where we fundamentally disagree, however, is that I think our problems are surmountable. She doesn’t.

When I spoke to my partner on the phone yesterday, I suggested couple’s therapy. My partner got annoyed as it was something she had suggested in the past. I’m not quick with these things. It takes me time to think on them, and that’s not good. But I’m open to the idea now, and especially because I think it can help. Anyway, she doesn’t think it can and doesn’t think we’ve been getting better. I put forward what I believed, she still didn’t think the relationship can be worked on. It felt like she wasn’t willing to consider what I said anyway, but she responded how she felt, and I don’t want her to feel pressured or manipulated into this.

When speaking to my partner about why, because everything seemed okay, she said that if she hadn’t said anything the day prior she probably would’ve pushed through, but once she spoke about how she felt after I asked her, she felt that that was that.

I spoke to some friends about it after. When it came to speaking to Ewe, I told him how I felt about the whole thing and that I still believed that we can get past our issues, but I wasn’t trying to push it more, because what can I do at that point anyway? And I talked about how I didn’t want to do what I did last time. I had to deal with it and go from there.

This morning I drove to work. Didn’t want to be on the bus. Put on the last playlist I created. The first song is “Feather”. I probably thought something along the lines of “here we go”. Headed to work and, along the way, realised I wasn’t in the best frame of mind to drive. But I got there okay.

So now I’m home, trying to make sense of it all. Trying to work out why my partner doesn’t feel affection for me anymore, but is scared of losing me. It having been the length of time is rarely the sole reason. Trying to make sense of her reasoning.

I’m deeply upset. I’m devastated, and it hurts, but this stuff always does. But at the same time I feel nothing.

I want to cry, but I’m holding off until I’ve some sense of stability back in my life. I still need to find another job and avoid being homeless. If I cry now, I’ll end up not functional for a week or two, and I don’t have that time right now. Right now I have to pick up the pieces, let the hurt happen and then work on rebuilding. But once I have another job, or another roof over my head that’s not this one, then I’ll cry.