Sometimes, It Just Can't Work.

Sometimes, I think there are instances where no matter how hard you try, something just isn't going to work out. Sure, life is hard and you will often have to navigate difficult terrain but occasionally, something can come along that seems far too great to overcome. I've experienced one of these things. 

I met a wonderful person. Someone who is truly a kind soul; he challenged me, he made me laugh, he made me feel safe and comfortable, and immediately, we were brutally honest with each other but in a completely respectful way. From almost the moment we met, we knew how opposite we were; a relationship between us was improbable at best.

Before we had even defined what we were, we had several serious and deep conversations about ourselves, us together, and us in the future. He was scared of investing his heart and his time in something that seemed so obviously doomed; additionally, he was concerned, and rightfully so, that some of our differences in opinion could actually jeopardize some other relationships in my life. And so before this relationship was defined, it appeared to be over. 

In keeping with our behavior, we talked. And talked, and talked, and talked for hours. We tried to process how we'd deal with issues down the road; could we fundamentally disagree with each other but stay together and continue to respect each other? If somehow things worked out and we got married and had kids, how could we possibly raise them if we disagreed on some of the things we'd teach them? I knew it wouldn't be easy. Not at all. But I wasn't ready to walk away from something that made me feel this good in my heart. 

During one our many long discussions, fraught with questions, hesitations, confusion, and worry, he said "I want to see how this will go but...". My response was made of pure frustration with a dash of comedy, "I'm sorry, wait. You want to see how this will go but you won't allow us to go? We can talk round and round about what will happen, how we'll react, how we'll feel but we can't predict the future. To see how something will play out, you have to let us go. Please, please, let us go forward." And he said, "okay." In that moment, 1 day before my 29th birthday, he decided to live in the moment and say yes to something that he wanted to do. I was thrilled, albeit cautiously optimistic. Three days later, he left on a 10 day hunting trip. 

On his way back, he mentioned to me that he had been "thinking about a lot of things" and I of course, was concerned for what that meant. We always prefer to talk about serious stuff while we're together so I knew I'd have to wait to find out what was going through his mind. A couple days later, we finally got to see each other again. We met up for dinner as we normally do and it was good to catch up. Towards the end of dinner, I finally asked him to tell me what he was thinking about. Basically, the specific issues that we had been dealing with from the very beginning were continuing to rear their ugly head in his mind. 

He worried we were ignoring an inevitable breakdown of our relationship revolving around these specific issues. I had told him before that I wouldn't be the only one fighting to make this work; that doesn't feel good for me and I can't carry all that on my own; he acknowledged that he has no problem fighting but in this case, it makes him hesitant to do so. I didn't really have an answer. Again, I was having to figure out how to navigate something that wasn't happening yet; a discussion, an event, a specific situation that hadn't started to play out. There was no real resolution that night. 

On sort of a side note, I happened upon an interesting quote that I shared with him: 

"The couples that are 'meant to be' are the ones who go through everything that is meant to tear them apart and come out even stronger than they were before." 

Is it true? I have no idea. But I certainly felt it was interesting and timely for our relationship.

Last night, the day before Thanksgiving, we were discussing his plans for the holiday when he wanted to talk about things again (I think mostly because there had been some discussion of me attending his mom's Thanksgiving dinner). Since I hadn't really given an "answer" to his concerns the prior evening, I think he felt unsettled. 

After another 45 minutes of serious discussion, I could tell that he needed to walk away from this and that I had to let him go. He apologized for having agreed to be in a relationship only because I invested more time, energy, and emotion into this; however, I'm not mad. Neither of us regret his decision; it gave us a little more time together. At the time, it's what he wanted. It's what I wanted. If only that were enough. When you truly feel something for someone, you don't want it to stop. You just want it to work. But maybe sometimes, it just can't.