Last week he asked me to need him.
Needing him terrifies me.
He asked me to trust him.
I looked into his blue eyes.
I said, “I want to need you. I’m afraid.”
He tucked my head under his chin and squeezed my shoulders.
He said, “I would never hurt you.”
I said, “I need you.”
He said, “I need you. I love you.”
This week he hurt me.
He went off the grid to the mountains with his ex-wife and teenage children. He knew about the trip when he promised not to hurt me. Rather than explain, he was blunt and cold.
His last words were, “I’m tired. I’m going to bed.” Not my bed. The bed in guestroom at his ex wife’s house.
Then no contact for thirty six hours.
My phone rang.
He was calling from his ex wife’s house.
A short forty minute drive from me.
I felt vulnerable.
I thought that if we could just press our hearts together for a moment,
our connection would repair the abandonment I felt.
I asked him to stop by for a few minutes.
He said, “No, not tonight.”
I asked if I could come to him.
I just needed him to spare a few minutes.
He said, “No.”
I begged.
He said, “No.”
He said that hearing his car leave would hurt his ex and kids.
He couldn’t do that to them.
He didn’t say it with words, but he meant that he needed them to believe that I was less important to him.
Not hearing his car hurt me.
I was less important.
I dropped to my knees in my kitchen.
Gripping the phone.
Tears pooling on my hardwood floor.
“Why ask me to need you, if I am not your priority?”
He said for the first time, “This is the last time.”
He said, “You are my priority. I love you so much.”
I hope he means it.
Life after 50 