Is This the End?

"Do you think we would ever be happy together?"

My fingers automatically stopped typing.  I could feel my throat starting to close up on me; my heart jumped and was already racing at twice its normal rate.  I found it hard to breathe.

He sat up from his reclining position and was now sitting with his feet flat on the ground, facing me.  

I shifted uncomfortably in my seat, glad to have the desk and my computer screen as a make-shift shield between him and me.  

We hadn't even begun to 'talk,' and there I was already wishing for the conversation to end.  Various emotions fleeted through my mind all at once: fear, sadness, anger, hopelessness.  Panic and a sense of foreboding slowly made their way from the tips of my toes upwards, invading my peace and sense of security.

I remembered asking myself, "Oh God, what is it again this time?  What have I done now?"  I fought the tears that were threatening to escape, afraid he would roll his eyes and see it as another 'flaw' in my personality.  These days, there really was no limit to the amount of 'wrong' things he saw in me.  I didn't even know why I would bother worrying about disappointing him even more.  It seemed to be my specialty lately.

I was never one to articulate my feelings well verbally.  Perhaps that was why all my attempts at communication with him had failed.  Maybe that was why I've given up talking.  It only led to more tears and heartbreak for me.  

If I thought there was no way I could possibly feel any worse than what I was feeling, I was dead wrong.  What could be worse than being told that your husband's having a midlife crisis and the one thing he felt unhappy about was his wife?  And then shortly after, you heard him confessed that he didn't love you anymore, and that to him you were simply a mother to his child? 

Well, this: being told that the last time he felt happy with me was during the first two or three years we were together and then when I was pregnant.  Recap: we've been together for twelve years, and my daughter is almost seven.  It didn't take long for me to do the math, really.  Basically what he's telling me was that he had not been happy for the last nine years.  Nine f*cking years out of the twelve years we've been together, people.

Oh, wait.  There's more.  He felt that he needed to make one more clarification.  About not loving me anymore.  It didn't just happen, you see.  He's stopped loving me waaaaaay back.  At least a few f*cking years back.  Try five to six years back. 

Well that was just great, wasn't it?  Just kept on shooting more bullets at me, would ya?  Stab me, turned the knife left and right, and might as well pour some salt while you're at it.  

At the end, I asked him, "What do you want me to say?"   

What were you hoping to accomplish by saying this?  Did you want me to make the divorce decision for you?  Was this meant to be cathartic for you, even if it was at my expense?  Didn't you care?  Oh wait, that's right.  You didn't.