I mentioned it on the LS but I wanted to have room to explain everything that happened. About a month ago I did have a battle with kidney cancer and I won. But it hurt my b/f (in a minute) so bad that he withdrew and I felt abandoned. Words were exchanged and fights broke out and they became so bad that divorce papers in the end were signed. The night they were signed, his aunt passed away. His Aunt Barb was a wonderful woman. Very open in her home, her faith in God and in her family. If you were loved by her, like I was, you were her immediate family. It made me proud to become a Riley. But she's gone now. I felt very ill to my stomach, and that night, he just held me from behind and broke down into tears. His aunt was his adopted grandmother. I broke up with him in 2005 originally when he refused to let me in to talk about his own grandmother passing away. This time, I chose different. I sat down and all he said was "I don't want to stay married to you anymore, I'll keep withdrawing and hurting you badly. But I don't want to stop loving you either." I, who am of the Buddhist faith, actually said under my breath, "God why are you doing this to our family? What did we do to deserve this?" But I held him tightly and didn't let go. I promised him that even if I was burned alive, I'd continue to stand outside his outter shell and pry my way in. Because for the first time in the world, We both feel like we have no one else to turn to, we can't stand up by ourselves. And it's easier to withdraw from life. Even if I didn't love him anymore, I can't walk away and let him self destruct. He's not a depressed person by genetics, or nature, but he had that "Please just kill me and end this pain now," look in his eyes and I won't abandon a friend I love dearly for that.
Today we just sat in his aunt's house, looking at all the photo's and I said, "If Aunt Barb knew we divorced, she'd still love us both." he nodded. And then he said "We can't repair this damage. We'll just get hurt trying." And I sat quietly for a moment, looking at a picture of us with Aunt Barb at our wedding... and then I said, "We only hurt ourselves if we try to repair a loveless relationship, and I don't think either of us could look the other in the eye and say "I don't love you." I could feel the tears in his eyes, and words didn't have to say what the tears said. For now, we're just b/f and g/f. But in our hearts, we're much more. Because of the love his aunt showed me and how she welcomed me into the flock, despite my belief in a different religion, how when I was in the hospital she came to visit me, It's for those reasons, that I didn't change my last name back. I am keeping Riley with pride. Just like the pride of our family's Irish Coat Of Arms I had tattooed on my right arm.
Life is tough, in fact we need to repair the damage we caused each other if we're to continue on and that could take a long time. But like I said on the LS earlier last night "This day sucked, but at least there's a silver lining."
