Jen,

Thank you for the kind words, and it would be difficult to explain my profession, but I do write a lot. 🙂 Consider though, words are empty pointers, meaningless in and of themselves, and its the heart and mind of the reader that gives them meaning. Said differently, its not my love that makes the words shine, its yours. My love just moves me to hold up a mirror, offer what is seen in your dance. 🙂

The same is true of this “he is the love of my life” and “my man should fight for me if his love is true”, as though the world revolves around one another, as though your love is resting “out there” with him, and he is doing poorly with such a gift. This isn’t the case, your love is inside you, and has little to do with him. He perhaps helps inspire it, but he doesn’t own it, it doesn’t belong to him, it isn’t “there with him”, its where its always been… inside you.

Trying to go back makes sense, because in the past there were moments of security, peacefulness, awe and romance. Wanting him to quickly move through his grief, so you can have those feelings again also makes sense. But its also not kind to either of you to keep grabbing at it in such a way. He needs space to grow and figure out the man he is, and has such a full plate. Like a rubber band, wound tight, that he has to slowly cry and breathe and unwind and find silence and peace and so forth.

This might be stingy, but you’re going to have to accept that the past is dead, things have changed, that “kingdom of two” collapsed. For now or for good, depends on the choices your both make here and now. Its unknown. So while it may seem reasonable to harness all that desire to go back to what it once was, its actually desire that does nothing. Restless spinning. Insecurity, a feeling of “lost home” that perhaps pushes you to grab toward him, hoping for him to rekindle your porch light. But that just doesn’t usually work, and at the very least, leaves you vulnerable to an inordinate amount of pain.

Consider this in metaphor. Intimacy is like a bridge that crosses between beings, over waters of space and time. It requires a stable ground to remain steadfast, like a solid footing into the mutual dream that keeps romance flowing. It sounds like when the divorce happened, his land became flooded, a whole mess of emotional water that he held back, avoided, came pouring into his land. This saturated the soil, houses crumbling, bridge collapsing, and a whole lot of mess and stink is bubbling up for him. Trying to rebuild a bridge does nothing good right now, the land too saturated with water, too swampy for anything real to become built. This isn’t permanent, for the sun will shine, the waters will recede, and his soil will find its balance, its strength. But it takes time.

As you try to rebuild a bridge, it just produces more rubble, more junk for him to clean out. The flood was perhaps caused by his sacrificing of his desire to meet the expectations of women. You, his ex-wife, his mom, telling him to be this or that, pushing and prodding and poking. Instead of telling all y’all to back away, shut up, leave him alone to sort out what he wanted, he repressed it, hid, did your bidding. Just a guess, I don’t know him of course.

This is perhaps why I keep feeling moved to steer you away from this restless grasping at him and his side, wanting him to give you back the home you once had. You’re your own home, hold your own love, have your own swampy ground to tend more delicately. Said differently, dropping the metaphor, perhaps through tender self nurturing, you can discover and uproot the causes that lead you to push and prod and poke and demand. I think it has something to do with you deciding he is the source of your love, and so reaching for your own stability, your warm affection, trying to create a sense of home within your own heart, keeps looking like you somehow “need” him to give you happiness. So, of course you’d be angry if he stops you from coming home, refuses or ignores your cry… but he doesn’t have your happiness, isn’t its keeper or muse. That’s perhaps just you, grabbing at him for something that’s been inside you all along.

With warmth,
Matt