You may be wondering what the aftermath looked like from Jon choosing to not say he loved me. Here are some snippets:
- I tried to talk to Jon. Which was as productive as trying to have a conversation with a King's Guard outside Buckingham Palace. The most I ever got out of those conversations was, "I'm not good at communicating," followed by stony silence. Sometimes I got a half-hearted, "Should we try counselling?" which I realize now was his way of pretending to have an ounce of investment still left in our relationship. I must have sensed his apathy in the suggestion, because I immediately starting warning him that counselling was not a passive endeavor. It took effort, we would be given homework, and he would have to face a lot of uncomfortable truths about our relationship that he had taken for granted all these years (ie. I do EVERYTHING, you are a "silent treatment" savant, etc). Mind you, I was on board, but something felt off. This might have been where I realized I couldn't take the reins and do everything like I had for the past 10+ years. I needed to see some initiative. I have no doubt that if I had put my foot down and did everything, made the counselling appointments, forced Jon to engage in our homework, and kept up the appearance of a happy home, we would still be together. Jon had the gall to sabotage everything, but didn't have the guts to walk away.
- My family became fiercely protective of me. It didn't take long for my sisters to hear what happened. And then my phone blew up when they did. Leave him! You'd be better off without him! You could easily find someone better! Fortunately I had a lot more impulse control and really didn't believe anything they said.
- I tried texting Jon. Maybe he would have more to say if it wasn't face to face. This is the best I got:
To which I then got... nothing.
- My kids noticed. At least they noticed that mom was suddenly spending a lot of her time in bed napping and crying in the afternoons. Logan had a friend over to play and I overheard her say, "My mom cries all the time, ha ha!" Fortunately that was all they noticed at this point. I could handle being a crying laughingstock if it protected their little hearts and childhood as long as possible.
- I tried. I asked Jon out for a date. Even secured a babysitter that wasn't Grandma and Grandpa (because they had just left for 2 weeks in Arizona). I was ready to put everything I had into that date: try to make him laugh, flirt, connect, talk about lighter things. But as soon as he got home he let me know that he had invited another couple that were friends of ours. Okay. A double date isn't what I had in mind, but baby steps are okay. I could take him out again next weekend. In retrospect, I see now that another couple was a buffer. Even in my efforts to get closer, I was still being held at arm's length. But it felt like we had fun, the mood lifted a little, Jon seemed happier. And I would become lulled away into thinking things were improving.
If I had to sum up everything with one picture, I would choose this:
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