Time to Let Go

When you fight to cling to people who are no longer meant to be in your life, you delay your destiny. Let them go.
—Mandy Hale
Life as taught me in my 42 years that traumatic or disparaging events happen without reason, with little or no warning. Getting over the hurdles make you tenacious as a human being, and your character, who you are as a person, also strengthens. Your sense of how to live a peaceful life, and your understanding of the importance of fostering empathy for others and their own misfortunes, develops and becomes acute. You become more rational and tolerant. Sometimes in order to live a full and happy life, you do indeed have to let go of things that are extremely important to you, despite the title of my TEDx talk that I gave last year, “Never Letting Life Go.”

My second marriage after only five years has failed. My wife and I have been unhappy together for well over a year. She claims I don’t give her “support” (she could never properly elaborate on what she really meant), which is her roundabout way of saying that she simply doesn’t want to be an equal partner in our relationship or even loves me. She couldn’t ever bring herself to tell me directly for months or perhaps years, but she finally found the courage to look me in the eye and state that she wanted a divorce.

It’s not possible to live with someone that you don’t respect as an equal partner. Relashionships thrive on trust, mutual compromise and empathy. Although she was undoubtedly aware of this, she nevertheless chose to continue building a family with me, while carefully guarding the absence of love, going through the motions until she would eventually shut herself down to me. In the meantime I kept encouraging, supporting, loving, giving my all to our union.  But we both eventually realized that we were simply not meant to be together.

I am no saint. I can be difficult to live with and irritable, especially when I have something important to me on my mind. I’m also human. I grew up in a household where expressing surprise or frustration with misunderstandings in a boisterous manner--but without any real anger--was a normal thing. Indeed many Armenian-Americans I’ve known in my life often spoke in a tone that sounded as if they were perpetually annoyed. Like any tight family we would have infrequent disagreements, but we always ended up coming together, our love for each other stronger than ever.

My emotions and tendency to become volatile when facing adversarial life situations, unprovoked rudeness or exasperating conflicts were interpreted by her as personal affronts when they had in fact nothing to do with her. She’s even used past negative experiences I endured five or more years ago, linked to personal problems in my life totally unrelated to her and our relationship, as reasons for separation. This self-centered frame of mind I have never understood, and it also eventually led to the marriage’s dissolution.

I’m not the man I was seven years ago when we first met or even last year. I am constantly working on myself and my ambitions, to be a better person, more in control of my emotions and thoughts, my outlook on life. I struggle to balance the reality of the moment with the dream of tomorrow. 

Despite the break up I am remarkably happy. I see my boys and Areg stays over three nights a week. Chi Chi keeps me sane; she’s always there to hear out my frustrations, and she comforts me when I’m blue. Regardless of the setbacks I’ve had I’m moving on, and I don’t dwell on mistakes I made as I used to. I’m letting the negative aspects of my past go, not life in its entirety. And I know that so long as I continue going forward keeping true to my word, striving as best as I can to cease making assumptions, to not take things personally, to give life my all, I will keep happiness close to me. I wish the same for her, regardless of the life path she chooses to journey along.

But nothing stops me from missing the laughter of my boys late at night as I try, sometimes in vain, to sleep.

Comments

Marash Girl said…
My heart goes out to you . . .
Vrejouhy said…
I did not expect to read this , I pray that you all will find comfort and peace

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