So back to “what did you love about him?” I found this such a tough question when G. asked it. Not because it wasn’t real, or because I didn’t know, but because it’s hard for me to put that kind of depth into words that make up a conversation.

Women are so good at deconstructing relationships. We’re so sure that our rationalizations are on target, until we find out (sometimes years later) that some of what we were so sure of wasn’t exactly the way it happened. Or what the guy thought at the time.

But let me take a stab at this one.

When a love affair ends, it’s a dying process. The stages of grief apply to a relationship, just like they do to any death. Sometimes grieving a relationship can be a very long process.

And not necessarily linear.

It all starts with that river in Egypt: denial. If you’re still holding on to the dream when most people around you are shaking you hard to get your attention, and even those who have a stake in wanting it to work are biting their tongues, well, you’re in denial.

Lord, I can paddle that river for a loonng time. I’m known for my endurance. And that’s not a good thing.

So what did I love about former DH2B? A lot. His inherent sweetness. His sharp and creative mind. His warmth. His talent. His perverse observations about the world. The way he’d make me laugh, that real laugh that comes from deep within. We had a deep connection. A deeply private one. And one that I’ll probably never be able to put into words. He, a poet with an ear for the perfect and wicked turn of a phrase, could do it better than I.

And I loved the creative environment in which we lived.

Most people around us focused on his story. I didn’t think he was his story. But HE thought he was and had the knee-jerk responses to prove it.

You can’t make a marriage out of someone’s story.

It was ill-fated. And I lived in denial for a very long time.

If you’re good at denial, you get to meet anger –its companion. When things aren’t going the way you think they should, the way you want them to, and denial is hiding the explanation, then, yeah, you get angry. You have pity parties. You rage against the dying of the light, with apologies to Dylan Thomas.

I’m not that good at going gentle into that good night.

Bargaining. You can even bargain with yourself. “I can accept this. I can make it work. I know X but if I do Y it’ll be fine.”

I bargained, but not with God. With myself.

Much is said today about depression , but post-relationship depression is not something Prozac can treat. It’s appropriate depression and it comes about when you realize that nothing is really working.

Nothing.

You can rail against the fates. You can have a pity party. You can bargain with yourself or with God. But it ain’t gonna work. No way. No how. That’s a sad reality.

And so finally: Acceptance. When you know there’s no way to get it back.

So what am I really saying? Simply this.

I can’t answer the question “what did you love about him” in any way that would be meaningful to anyone but me.

A man had human flaws. I loved him despite them and sometimes because of them. Most people will assume it ended because of his story. He might think so, too.

But it really ended because he believed his own story and couldn’t step out of it.

I loved the man. I just couldn’t live with the story.

I may not blog about this again, and so I wanted to post one more thing. It’s the lyrics to a Leonard Cohen song, and I knew it would be the ending more than a year before I even knew the ending was coming.

Alexandra Leaving/Leonard Cohen

Suddenly the night has grown colder.
The God of love preparing to depart.
Alexandra hoisted on his shoulder,
They slip between the sentries of the heart.

Upheld by the simplicities of pleasure,
They gain the light, they formlessly entwine;
And radiant beyond your widest measure
They fall among the voices and the wine.

Its not a trick, your senses all deceiving,
A fitful dream, the morning will exhaust c
Say goodbye to Alexandra leaving.
Then say goodbye to Alexandra lost.

Even though she sleeps upon your satin;
Even though she wakes you with a kiss.
Do not say the moment was imagined;
Do not stoop to strategies like this.

As someone long prepared for this to happen,
Go firmly to the window. drink it in.
Exquisite music. Alexandra laughing.
Your firm commitments tangible again.

And you who had the honor of her evening,
And by the honor had your own restored
Say goodbye to Alexandra leaving;
Alexandra leaving with her lord.

Even though she sleeps upon your satin;
Even though she wakes you with a kiss.
Do not say the moment was imagined;
Do not stoop to strategies like this.

As someone long prepared for the occasion;
In full command of every plan you wrecked
Do not choose a cowards explanation
That hides behind the cause and the effect.

And you who were bewildered by a meaning;
Whose code was broken, crucifix uncrossed
Say goodbye to Alexandra leaving.
Then say goodbye to Alexandra lost.

Say goodbye to Alexandra leaving.
Then say goodbye to Alexandra lost.