I remember when the sun used to rise and set in your eyes. I remember when watching you open your eyes each morning was a sacred event for me. I’d wake up early and roll over to watch you. Your nose would twitch in that cute way that made we want to lap you up right then and there. I’d hold my breath when your eyelids would flicker, and I didn’t dare breathe until they finally opened.
That was my favorite part. My day didn’t begin, my sun didn’t shine, until you opened your eyes.
I can still see them when I close my eyes at the end of a really long day. The deep, dark gray that clouded when you were unhappy, brightened when you were excited. I could always tell your moods by the color of your eyes.
Do you remember when you were accepted into that fellowship at that hospital in Boston? I couldn’t believe you wanted to go north, but I knew you got in before you even told me. Your eyes shone like you’d just been given the one thing you’d been waiting your whole life for. Sometimes, I think it really was what you’d wanted all along. Not me. Certainly not me. But that’s neither here nor there.
I know you blame me. Though it’s been a long time, I’m sure it still crawls around in your gut, and you hate me for it. I can’t prevent you from thinking that of me when I think it of you, too.
Maybe one day the bitterness will disappear, and the sun will shine again.
I don’t know when I lost you. When I try to backtrack and think about the exact moment when things stopped going anywhere, I can’t find it. Then again, I imagine I can’t find it because I don’t want to think about us and how we didn’t work out. What’s the point on dwelling in the past when we’ve both so obviously moved on? At least, I hope we’ve moved on.
I saw you a few days ago. You wouldn’t know that because I saw you from a distance, but you seemed happy. The angry lines had disappeared from your forehead, and your smile seemed genuine. I couldn’t quite remember the last time I’d seen your face light up like that. You were with him, and I thought that you finally seemed complete.
Yes, complete.
Maybe I lost you because I realized we weren’t complete when we were together. When I finally grew up and stopped believing in fairy tale endings, maybe that’s when I knew. Complete would mean being able to talk to each other, not at each other. Complete would mean that you knew that I was quiet after we made love because I was happy. Complete would mean that you understood that I didn’t want to go out to that restaurant on the corner of Market and Forty-second because I didn’t want people gawking at me. Complete would have been if you’d just understood.
Again, I don’t want to place the blame on either of us. Things just happened the way they happened.
Our marriage didn’t fail because we tried too hard or didn’t try hard enough. It happened because I didn’t tell you what I should have told you. I should have told you that I didn’t want to go to that family planning consultant, that I wanted children right away, that I didn’t want you to be on birth control, that I wanted us to be like all other couples in the world. Normal and happy.
Did I ever tell you why I fell in love with you? It was because I felt normal and happy when I was around you, and I’m sorry that I stopped feeling that way. I remember that you were my haven from the madness. When it was just you and me, I could shut out the rest of the nosy world and those horrible photographers that lurked around trying to get pictures of us.
I’m sorry that it didn’t last. That this piece of me started breaking away from you and made it harder and harder for me to be happy and feel normal when I was with you. I tried to stop it. I really did. I know you might not believe me, but I did try.
I met you during that concert, God, where was it? Oh, right. Little Rock, Arkansas. You told me that you didn’t really want to come to the concert, let alone backstage, but you were doing it because your adorable sister was in love with us. You let me know, quite succinctly, that you hated the Boys and all we stood for—which, you so kindly informed me, was the idea of having masses of women fall all over themselves to hear us open our mouths and croak like bullfrogs. God, you were amazing.
Do you remember the first time we went out to dinner? You didn’t want to be seen with a Backstreet Boy, for crying out loud, but you came anyway. “It’s free food,” you’d explained to me with a sadistic gleam in your eyes. “Why wouldn’t I come? It more than makes up for the fact that I have to be seen with you.” But you came. That’s what I remember the most. You came.
I trusted you. I don’t trust many people. Not after the several years I’ve spent being mobbed, pushed at, pulled, and forced in a billion and one directions. Everyone always wants a piece of you, and I stopped trusting that their motives were purely in my interest. Except you. Because I already knew that you didn’t want me because of what I was. You wanted me because of who I was. A man.
At least, that’s what I thought was happening. Initially.
I’ll never forget the first time I kissed you. Mind you, I’ve kissed so many women before that I wasn’t expecting anything incredible to happen. You surprised me, though, the way you always did. All I know is, one second I had just barely felt the pressure of your lips against mine, and the next second, I’m flat on my back in the mud with you practically crawling under my skin.
You made me feel alive, oh so alive, in that moment. And I want to thank you for it. I know you must be gasping in shock at the prospect of me actually thanking you, but I am. There it is. Take it or leave it.
There are days when I wake up reaching for you, and it breaks my heart when I remember that you’re not there. “We” no longer exists when it comes to you and I. The day I left, I lost my best friend and my wife. I didn’t realize, at the time, that they were the same person.
I can’t pick out and pinpoint a day and time when I fell out of love with you. Maybe it was when, for the millionth time, we argued about the possibility of children. Sure, I knew you wanted to wait until your career was on stable ground. You wanted to be established in your field, in your position. Not once in any of those arguments did you fail to mention how I had already done all I could do, and that I wouldn’t understand.
You were wrong. No, you really were. I did understand the need to be established and respected in what you want to do. I can perfectly understand the need to prove yourself and not wanting anything to stand in your way. I’m sorry that you couldn’t understand that I was more than willing to be a stay-home father. I was willing to quit the group for you and our children. After all, I left my life in Florida and Los Angeles for you. I sold the homes that I’d so lovingly made and left it all behind. For you.
I guess the real criminal in our failed marriage is compromise. Or the lack of compromise. I wish I’d been more willing to understand your needs, but I couldn’t. We couldn’t understand each other.
I didn’t want to die, but I could see my death. It was coming for me, and I pictured me dying from suffocation. I pictured myself being unable to breathe, my hands clawing at my throat as I slowly, tortuously died from a lack of oxygen. And I could picture you, in your hospital scrubs, standing over my body and shaking your head. I could see that distanced look on your face that appeared every time you looked at me as though you were trying to figure out what disease was growing in me that was causing me to behave in a way that was unacceptable to you.
My heart walked out the door before I could even think about it. I didn’t mean for it to, but it did. It was so hungry for someone to warm it, to care for it, it was attention-starved, and I was tired of telling it to wait. That tomorrow, things were going to be different. But, of course, they weren’t. You asked for a second chance, but I’d given you thousands of chances. Everyday that we were together was another chance.
I didn’t mean for it to happen, but my heart leapt headfirst into my chest the instant I met her. I never meant to hide it from you or betray you. You have to know that I never betrayed you in anything but the most spiritual of senses. But I guess that’s the most important, and harmful, sense there is. I won’t apologize for not feeling guilty about the emotional betrayals because they’re all in the past.
My heart felt full and ecstatically happy with her because she made me feel again. I was a million frayed and deadened nerves hanging inside my cold, cold body, but, the instant I caught her before she could trip into the Charles River, everything burst to life inside me. My searching heart stopped searching. It was home.
Just as yours is. He makes you happy, and that’s all I’d ever wished for you. You lulled yourself into thinking you were happy with me because you wanted so desperately to succeed in everything. I know now that it broke your heart more to say you failed at something instead of the fact that I walked out hurt you. I won’t tell you that knowing why you really cried in those weeks and months stabbed knives into my heart. My heart finally beat, but it beat with bloody barbs in it.
I left because it was too easy to stay and keep going on with our day to day lives and not causing a ripple. It was too easy to be Sweet D who would always love the woman he married, take his vows seriously, and be an upstanding man. It was too easy to be a doormat.
It was difficult to leave you, but, now, you have to leave me, too. When I see you, you have such anger in your eyes. The gray is nearly black, and it saddens me because I love your eyes. But I need you to leave me without any recriminations, hurt, or anger. He needs you to leave me, too. You deserve to have him because he seems to hold your heart the way you hold his. Completely.
When we can leave each other, maybe we’ll be able to look back on our memories without anger, without disgust. I still find those memories sweet, beautiful, and will always cherish them. And, while I will thank you for them, I will also, for the last time, say I’m sorry. Not for the good memories, but for the bad ones. But even those will be forgotten in time. The good will always remain.
Author's Chapter Notes:
This is based on a story in Elle magazine called "Why I Left You". I felt the need to write this crawling under my skin, and I had to write it. I hope you enjoy!
