Rolling in the Deep

Once upon a time I met a very nice, funny, smart man (bonus points for his English/Australian accent). We argued from the third date forward, bickered, drove each other mad... but persevered and fell in love. I married this man who fit into my family like a hand into glove, who had all the markers of a happy and successful life about him.

And then it disintegrated beneath our feet. We didn't do the work, we stopped appreciating, admiring and respecting one another and it all went to shit.

For the 18 months we have been separated he has been angry. His contempt for me and the choice I made came off of him in waves. This contempt kept me safe, kept me from really remembering who he is, and how good a person he really is.

On Fathers Day we took the kids out to lunch, and we had a very nice time all around. Grief did wash over me on the subway ride home when I looked across at my daughter sitting on her Daddy's lap, my son on the seat beside them legs tucked beneath him. It is another moment for me of the family portrait that I wanted so badly. I swallowed my grief, we got of the train and came home.

Yesterday, I got an email from him that I wish so much he had sent two years ago. The email that said, I see you, I miss you, and I love you. We have hurled too many poison darts, laid to many traps for the other, for us to even have a chance of a second chance. I do not love him like a husband, and I never will again, but I sobbed all night, and sobbed sporadically throughout the day, and my chest aches... and it feels like we are breaking up for the first time all over again.

I need to know, will this ever feel better?