The answer that my messages had been received was a final
straw for my evening - the messages were received but I was not important enough
to him to deserve a response.
What do you do when your partner in life is so angry that he won't even
acknowledge an apology? My hurt and frustration finally turned to anger and I
reacted. Animals, including humans, tend to have a fight or flight response to
uncomfortable situations, I had to get away before I said something in anger
that I would later regret. I chose flight over fight. My children were sleeping
and he was home. Even though he was ignoring me, I knew the kids were taken care
of. So I threw on my gym clothes and left.
It didn't matter that it was 11:45 at night; the gym was open 24-hours during
the week. It didn't matter that I had left the gym only a few short hours ago.
What mattered the most was that I didn't further damage my marriage by saying
something out of anger - something I would later regret.
There were less than twenty cars in the parking lot, and the evening clerk had
to pull himself away from the television to check me in. I went with the
intention of burning some calories with some cardio, and went to the locker room
to put up my bag and grab my radio.
I sat on the bench next to my locker, thankful for soft sounds of Conan coming
from the television on the opposite side of the room. I was thankful, too, that
I had a locker in the pass-coded area and could just sit without fear of being
interrupted as it was doubtful that my locker mates would be there at this late
hour!
And as I sat, I realized I didn't have the mental or physical strength to go
upstairs and exercise. The anger and fire that had driven me now turned to
sadness and frustration at myself. After three or four steps forward on
rebuilding our relationship, the previous day's disagreement seemed to take my
value back to zero. It hit me that I was such a failure.
I lay down on the floor, between the bench and my locker - face down, cradling
my head on my crossed arms and finally allowed myself to cry.
As I lay on the floor, I tried to think back to the previous day, tried to
figure out why my gestures of dinner and a card of apology weren't appreciated.
Two cards at this point, unopened that I finally tore into pieces and threw in
the trash. He wasn't interested in anything from me.
Was it me? Was it him?
I had already decided that the issue we argued over wasn't worth the destruction
of our marriage. I vowed I wouldn't bring it up again, and promised myself to
continue trying to be nice to a woman who was one of his best friends. What I
hadn't realized was maybe, his relationship with her, the issue we argued about,
was so important to him, that it was worth dissolving our marriage in his mind.
I questioned if love was enough or maybe, just maybe, the answer was simply he
no longer loved me. True, our interests had changed over the years - but I had
thought our love would carry us through and keep us together. He had become more
outgoing and interesting, but my only growth took place in my expansion of
cyberspace. I had become a boring partner to an exciting man. Yes, maybe I was a
failure.
As I lay on the floor in the locker room and finally let the tears flow, I began
to relax. My breaths slowed and my heart rate dropped. I drifted to sleep, and
had disjointed dreams about what I needed to do to make my marriage work.
I was awakened by a sound I couldn't quite place and it took me a moment to
realize where I was. Yes, I was at the gym, lying on the floor of the women's
VIP locker room. I glanced at the watch portion of my heart rate monitor and saw
that it was now 12:30. My heart rate was nice and low, under 70. The combination
of flight and tears and sleep had calmed my body and hopefully refreshed my mind
a bit.
I stood and stretched, doing those yoga kind of controlled breaths, trying to
center myself. I gathered my bag, dug the keys from my purse, and decided it was
time to home.
I walked out the door and into the cool night, breathing in the night air and
hoping for a better tomorrow.