Trigger Warrning: House of Cards

Trigger Warning: since I am going to discuss some recent difficult events that have left me in a very depressed state I am adding this generic trigger warning. Descriptions and events in this article may be triggering to some individuals. I will categorize them as relating to relationship and feelings of despair.

Some days, I am afraid of the concept of happiness. While I desperately want to happiness and to recover, they both share me.

Why do they scare me? Too many times in my life I have seen one or both of them in my grasp. I start getting optimistic and feeling good about things, but then all to often the rug gets yanked out from under me and the house of cards comes crashing down.

That’s where I am right now. In 2006, I got divorced, partly because there were things I needed in my life that my ex-wife did not want to share with me. Those things were very important to me. I decided that I would not get married again unless the person shared those same interests. I also wanted to have kids.

After a few years I found my current wife and we shared the same interests; however, she wasn’t able to have children. I thought about it and decided that sharing the other things with her would make up for not being able to have kids.

Over the last year, that has changed. The things she was once willing to share with me, she no longer will share with me. In some cases it is by choice, in others it is related to ability. The reason that the relationship had changed are not important. The important part is that change. The things are just as important to me today as they were seven years ago.

If I ignore them and bury them it is another form of self-harm. It might not be physical, but it is emotional and psychological self-harm. Ignoring these things would leave me feeling numb, angry, hurt and a big part of me would be missing and unfulfilled. I would never be truly and totally happy.

It is not a matter of life, I still love her more than anything else. It is a matter of missing vital parts of me. The moment she told me, everything came crashing down and it sent me into a tailspin. All weekend I have had my head filed with morbid and dark images. My heart and soul have felt totally empty. I have wanted to cry since Saturday but have not been able to for some reason.

It has also awakened a white hot rage in me, not for my wife but for the “person” that hit us four years ago. Maybe without the accident this never happens or maybe we would have found out before we get married and could have walked away friends

The last four years I have dreamed about the day we could share the things together. It was one of the things that helped me get through all the hard times, helped me but hate the woman that did this to her. It was just a matter of time, it was a delay in attaining, not a destruction of, what we wanted. My wife’s words the other day were the destruction that the accident started.

It crushed my dreams. It has left me feeling dead inside, full of pain and rage. The extremes are not desirable and even the middle ground that exists does not sit well with me. It is almost as undesirable as the extremes.

There is so much hopelessness in my life right now. A few months back my therapist and I talked about a small subset of this problem. She seemed to agree with me that depriving myself and neglecting this part of myself with be unhealthy and self-harm.

There does not seem to be any good solution. I am devastated, lost, angry and empty.

After last year, this year seemed so promising. I was full of hope and optimism. I do not even feel like trying anymore. I am tired of getting there…almost but never able to get the brass ring and hold on to it.