That sick feeling in your gut.
That knowing.
You’re losing him or her day by day.
You’re trying. You’re doing everything you can think of. Bringing her flowers. Cooking his favorite foods. Complimenting her on her dress. Giving him a back rub.
And nothing.
Your attempts at connection are met with a wall of silence.
You can’t get through.
And so you panic.
You talk to your partner’s parents. You ask them to intervene.
You talk to your partner’s friends and ask them if they know anything, if they’ve heard anything.
You talk to your pastor, your colleagues at work, anyone who’ll listen to you.
And no one can throw you a lifeline. They don’t know what you should do. They’re still happy in their own lives. They don’t get that everything that you’ve been living for is on the line. You’re surviving in a war zone, waiting for the next big bomb to strike, and you’re dying here.
Can’t anyone help??
It’s impossible to explain the panic and sheer terror of watching a long-term relationship or marriage crumble. No one can understand it unless they’ve been through it themselves.
It’s almost as if you’re a child again, and your mom and dad have decided to leave you in the care of a difficult and unpleasant relative. They walk out the door nonchalantly, giving you a pat on the head, not noticing your hysterical cries, shrugging off your arms wrapped vice-like around their legs, telling you not to make such a big fuss. The door shuts behind them, and you’re left alone. Maybe forever.
No wonder we do such terrible and crazy things. We’re driven to madness by loss.
But there’s a different story to tell.
In this story, you are the hero or heroine of a great and difficult quest.
You are destined for great things, but you must overcome obstacles first. The gods have thrown challenges in your path to try and break you.
They don’t want you to succeed, because if you succeed, you will have gained the power to see through illusion to the truth. You’ll see that gods don’t have any power over mortal lives. You’ll no longer fear them or anything else, because you have already been through hell. You’ve already lost everything there was to lose … except the fire inside you.
This is one of those challenges.
You have been led to believe that you won the prince or the princess.
You have been led to believe that love wins and peace shall reign forevermore.
You have been led to believe you could sit easy on the throne of marriage.
You were wrong.
And now you must fight.
But you are not fighting to regain control of your partner and make them come back to you.
You are fighting for love.
Can you love … even as the person you love refuses to accept it?
Can you love … even though your chest hurts and eternal loneliness lurks ahead?
Can you love … even when everything in you wants to rail against your partner’s betrayal and condemn them to the flames?
If you can, then you’ll finally understand the truth of the term unconditional love. You’ll advance to the next level, regardless of what happens with the relationship.
If you can’t, then you’ll stay here. You’ll keep fighting this battle again and again. You’ll fall in love, and it will fall apart. You’ll fall in love, and your partner will betray you. You’ll keep putting conditions on your love, and you’ll keep taking your love back when the person you love doesn’t behave like you want.
To get through this, you must learn that the only thing you have a right to is love.
You have the right to love this person.
You don’t have the right to keep them. Your love doesn’t give you any dibs over them. Your love is more of a promise: I’ll keep you warm, I’ll treasure you, I’ll be there when you need me.
And maybe your relationship didn’t have that kind of love before. Maybe it had the conditional kind, where you loved each other because you got something out of being together.
You can get through this.
You can grow through this.
This is your challenge, and it’s one of the mightiest challenges in your life.
But when you make it out the other side, you will have been cracked open. You’ll see something beautiful inside you never saw before.
A seed, growing through the rubble.