Goodbye to Love

Everyone who knows me or has been following me on this blog lately knows that I've had some troubling emotional issues going on at home. Though I didn't explain much about it because it was very personal, I'm afraid we're reaching the point where the difficulties have grown beyond total privacy, and now everyone is discovering my pain.

My wife and I have been going through problems for quite a while, more my wife than myself.  She grew distant and depressed over the past year, and it caused us occasional strife.  Sadly, neither of us knew how to deal with what she was going through, and I didn't realize how bad things were until she finally broke down and left me.  It was horrific and shocking, and I still can't believe some of the things she said.

It's been a week now, and life is never going to be the same.  We've been talking since the break-up, and we're getting back to being on fairly good terms, though it is clear that divorce is unavoidable.  We may be better as friends than we were as a couple, oddly enough.  I just want her to be happy, and if this is what makes her happy, then so be it.

The saddest thing out of all of this is that I know she still loves me, but it's complicated.  I cannot give her what she wants or needs, and she cannot take care of our 4 children.  Caring for them was the principal factor in her mental breakdown, and I was too busy to even notice.  While she was losing her mind, unable to cope with the responsibilities of being a mother, I was busy working.  I buried myself in my writing and editing when I wasn't on other jobs.  Rather than face the fact that she was unhappy and unsuited to being a wife and mother.  I ignored her recently, and it cost me dearly.  I wish she could have left more amicably, without feeling the need to gain sympathy from friends with gross slander, which she now apologizes for profusely.  I wish she could have talked to me sooner.

Now I am saddled with the unenviable task of being both parents to four children, while dealing with the emotional torment of being abandoned by the woman I love.  It could be a lot worse, and if certain people had their way it would be.  There are actually people in our lives that think we should be at each other's throats, or somehow can never be on good terms.  They cannot understand that we want to be reconciled as friends, even if we aren't going to be married anymore.  Those people never understood us, and never will.  I wish they would keep their noses out of our business, and their opinions to themselves.

I look back on everything, and I wonder if I'll ever write again.  Right now, I can't, and I'm starting to feel that my writing may have cost me my marriage.  When my wife was losing her mind, I was sitting in front of my computer, writing and editing, pursuing this dream that has consumed my entire life.  I wonder, what has it ever given me but heartache?  I never got a damn thing out of it, and now it's taken away the only woman I ever loved.  What's the point?

I don't really know at this point if I'll ever write again.  I'll keep with editing other people's work right now, because I am committed to that and I cannot go back on my commitments, unlike some people.  Though a few Martinus anthologies may be slightly delayed, I promise you that all 5 forthcoming anthologies will be published!  Yarr: A Space Pirate Anthology will be coming out this spring, followed by The Temporal Element, We Were Heroes, The Secret Life of Ghosts, and Altered Europa.  Have no doubt that those will be released, though perhaps a month or two later than originally scheduled.

I'm still holding on, though it is a painful ride...