Well, That Didn't Quite Work Out As Intended

Context: I've been thinking every day about a/the scenario in which to drop the bomb again and how to introduce "hey honey, i'm leaving" into a conversation.

I'm trying to wait until after kids exams are done now that all the shows and recitals and festivals are done.

This is quickly written and i apologise if any of it seems flip. It's not. Especially when living it.

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It's the big taxi day for the kids (from after work for a couple of hours). My son had imprecise instructions on where he's going for his stuff. I call to let Mrs_C know that I'm taking a long time for a good reason... we fianlly find the place he's supposed to go to

I get home. I eat (about 7:30) and get ready to go pick up my son right after. I advise Mrs_C I'm heading out - her reply is curt and a little snippy. I say "It's not like I planned to be given wrong directions and be late in order to avoid you."

She says "I don't care if you're avoiding me or not."

blah, blah, blah

Apparently she was up until 5 am the night before, while i slept, thinking about how i don't show her the level of feeling and emotion i should and never have. blah, blah, blah. yeah - maybe now i'm a little insincere, but i am still trying to do the best for the kids and still trying to avoid a rupture that would destroy all the members of our family - including her and I.

I'm thinking this is actually opportune (sorry if that view seems cold). I can introduce the concept of "we're finished" in a "conversation/diatribe" she instigated and maintain the "moral high ground".

After a bit i cut it off and leave to get my son.

I return. blah, blah, blah. emotion this, sincerity that, consideration this, cadbury's a bad person and has been since we were married. i say "well, we don't seem to agree on anything sand it doesn't look like we will so what's the point?" she says she's done everything for me since we were married - at the expense of her own personal well being. i ask "how's that work?" you were kind a bag lots of the time. she says "maybe i was but i showed my love in other ways and you didn't". she says - "look at all the shit i bought you, like lots of your clothes" (i respond by pointing out that 2/3 of her clothes were bought by me). i ask if she really wants to do a tally of everything nice either one has done through our whole marriage. she says no.

blah, blah, blah - i've never been sincere in my emotions or intentions or actions toward her.

at this point i've had it. i've been steering things toward "nothing will ever work between us", but i am piqued by the suggestion that i have been insincere since day one, and insincere prior to about a month or two ago. damnit i've tried. (mrs_C says if i really loved her i would have tried harder)

i launch into a solioquay about how i felt when we married, and how i tried through our marriage, but things haven't worked. sure i've made mistakes and i admit that, but my intentions were always good, and i can't live with where we've ended up and that's why i was always suggesting counselling because i don't think we can make it.

it was a speech of beauty. it was perhaps my finest performance ever. sincere (for real - there was a lot of emotion in it) - a choice excerpt below:

"I've never wanted to be a man like other men. I wanted to be different. I saw the damage done to you by other men, and the damage that wasn't done by them was done by your mother. i tried to heal that - tried to heal you - to staunch the open and gaping wounds with my body - and with my soul"

a shakespearean actor should be so good (and i should know, i've worked with more than a few them in theatre). i am a great public speaker. on a good day my voice is somewhere between Barry White and James Earl Jones with the white guy tones of Gregory Peck - with all the righteousness and passion of Peck as Atticus Finch in To Kill a Mockingbird.

there was emotion and passion and sorrow woven together with words that i don't know where they came from (my soul, i guess). i've written scripts for plays and speeches for politicians professionally, and this was a doozer by any standard.

ooops

i had intended this speech as a eulogy - a powerful requiem for our marriage

she was overwhelmed by it all and said she really loved me and would do anything for me

i weakly replied that i was referring to how i felt in the past and that we didn't seem to be getting it straight now

she said she would never doubt me again

i said - uh, we're not out of the woods with some serious issues

she said "i know, but i will never doubt your intentions"

i stumbled and stuttered

she had been paged into work earlier and left

the rest of the evening was calm with no reference to the earlier conversation

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i have no idea of whether i did actually overwhelm her with emotion or whether the terrible inevitablility of my logical progression was utterly apparent and she just blind sided me (remember my son's comment about "master manipulator")

yesterday i figured overwhelmed

today, on sober second thought i'm figuring blind siding

time to try again