to leave or to stay

ph: Rowena Waack

We’ve been together for a year now. We’ve done everything together, made promises and planned our futures. I love him with every inch of me, but there’s something wrong and not only can I not fix it, but I don’t even know what it is. We’ve always had fights, but lately they are heartbreaking and catastrophic. They last for days and days and we cry ourselves to sleep every night. What are we fighting about? Things have changed, he has changed but he doesn’t see it. He’s pulling away, I feel myself losing him and it’s making me crazy. He works a lot more now, and we don’t have much time to see each other. I wait for hours to see him and then something comes up and he can’t make it out to see me. He says he cares, I know he does. He hasn’t given up on us, and he says he never will. I’ve never felt so hopeless. I practice saying it out loud, “we aren’t happy in this relationship”… but when the time comes I am just scared to death of losing him and I can’t do it.

I can’t stand it anymore. Or that’s what I keep telling myself anyway. I have been saying that for so long it’s lost value to me. I am seriously down… so far down that I don’t even remember what it’s like to feel good about myself or have energy to pursue any type of happiness. I am the epitome of love addiction. How in the world do I stop putting him first? I put him above everything... my health, my goals, my happiness and it is killing me.

Still… I know all this … and when the time comes I don’t act on it.

I’ve prayed and begged and cried out all of my tears. I can’t do anything because as soon as I see him I am flooded with love. I know his secrets; I’ve held him while he’s cried. His smile, his laugh, everything about him are reasons not to leave.

But we can’t stop fighting. It’s hurting him too. I don’t know whether it would hurt him more to leave or to stay.